Arpeggio of Blue Steel X Warship Gunner: Remastered
by Craterkhan
Summary: The Fleet of Fog blockade the oceans. The captain of the captured Fog submarine I-401, Chihaya Gunzou wishes to prevent a war by delivering a secret weapon to destroy the Fog to the United States of America. However when an unknown battleship of massive size appears, Gunzou is forced to make a decision, one that may affect the fate of the world.
1. Chapter 0: The Prologue

**(Thanks to all of your comments, I feel as though my writing has significantly improved from what it was when I first started this series. As such I found the time to rewrite this series from the ground up, with significantly more description and a little less dialogue taking up the white space. In this series, there is no distinction between the Manga and the Anime of Arpeggio of Blue steel. Likewise every single game in the Warship Gunner series has had the boundaries between them erased. It will roughly follow the Arpeggio of Blue Steel anime storyline. All the content in this story with the exception of select equipment and characters are the property of their respective owners. There will be no set update date to this story so keep tuned for updates. With the formalities out of the way, I welcome you all to my universe.)**

Arpeggio of Blue Steel X Warship Gunner: The Re-birthed Past Remastered

 **Chapter 0: The Prologue**

Dusk had fallen across the Arctic ocean. Though the sun would not set due to the rotation of the Earth, it still remained dark as the rays of the sun pierced through portions of the heavy clouds. Light snow fell on the icebergs that littered Arctic ocean, giving them beautiful caps of white that shimmered with the glow of the broken sunrays. Occasionally, the currents of wind would blow away some snow and make pretty glimmering outlines in the sky. Nature in it's finest as the sun cast it's rays of light into the frigid wasteland, the snow on those iceberg peaks glimmered brighter than ever before. They flashed in prismatic color, reflecting the waste light from one of the biggest battles ever to occur at sea.

The scene was terrifying.

One lone superbattleship, painted in white with wispy glowing streaks of blue, was attempting to escape a horde of light cruisers and submarines as it passed through fields of icebergs. The cruisers radiated with evil red power as they chased after the battleship, firing bursts of red photons in an attempt to sink the great warship. The bursts impacted brilliantly against the battleship's Klein field with no effect. Corrosive warheads with devastating power streaked underwater towards the battleship, exploding in spheres of pink light as the battleships defensive systems responded in full. However there was no way the battleship could keep up her defense for long.

The battleship in question was no ordinary battleship. It was a supreme flagship of the seafaring faction known as the Fleet of Fog. Superbattleship Yamato, an advanced replica of its historic predecessor. There was no one aboard the battleship save for one girl. She was beautiful, clad in a flowing white dress that shimmered with streaks of blue. She possessed a beautiful tall figure, with long black hair that drifted behind her in the wind as the battleship made a retreat. Her face was nothing but pure, inlaid with two glimmering grey eyes that revealed an expression of sadness.

This girl was named Yamato, the sole controller of the superbattleship Yamato. She was a Mental Model. A replica of a human who possessed a union core within her that allowed her to control the superbattleship. She was the battleship. The Fleet of Fog light cruisers of the Nagara class followed her, spewing forth fire at her vessel as she tried in vain to escape the onslaught.

But there was no escape.

Yamato turned her broadside to the cruisers, bearing the golden barrels of her three triple 18.1 inch turrets on the pursuers as they glimmered with blue power. She waved her hand. The Nagara's suddenly turned dark as she overrode their inferior cores and caused a shutdown. Without command, the vessels moved at the whim of physics, ramming into each other and capsizing, creating quite a blockade. However, the blockade was completely ineffective for its intended purpose, as a second superbattleship, this one painted in dark blue with orange streaks, rammed straight through the blockade while sustaining no damage thanks to the thickened armor provided by the ever useful nanomaterial hull, which remodulated back to its original form as soon as the blockade was passed.

The superbattleship Musashi, the second supreme flagship of the Fleet of Fog and sister ship to Yamato.

Standing aboard the Musashi just in front of the forward superstructure's rangefinder was another girl. This one was also beautiful, possessing a shorter figure. She wore a black one-piece swimsuit decorated with white frills that matched her long white hair. Her eyes were closed, yet they still leaked tears as she cried. She was Musashi, the Mental Model of the superbattleship Musashi.

The Musashi's cannons turned on the Yamato as the interiors of the golden barrels glowed with an unholy orange light. The two superbattleships exchanged broadsides with each other, the bursts of photon cannon fire causing a pretty light show in the swirling snow overhead. Yamato looked to her portside and realized she was blocked by a large snow covered island that protruded from the water. There was no escaping Musashi and her assisting fleet.

"Musashi!" Yamato called out to her sister, speaking over a quantum link. "Please stop this."

"Yamato," Musashi responded, her voice burdened with sorrow. "You are being disobedient. You must cede control of the Admirality code to me."

"I will…..." Yamato's voice trailed off. The hull of Musashi broke in half and the upper portion rose to reveal eight powerful Super-gravity cannon pods that began to glow with sinister intent. There was only one defense against Super-gravity cannons and that was the Mirror-ring system, a defense that only the two supreme flagships possessed. However there was no time for Yamato to activate her system. Her Klein field was on the verge of breaking down and even if she had the ability to activate her Mirror-ring system, Musashi would simply close the distance and destroy her directly. She closed her eyes in acceptance as huge beams of orange energy lashed out from the graviton pods. They broke her Klein field into a billion motes of light and penetrated the hull of the Yamato, shattering in into pieces and applying such force that Yamato was thrown from her vessel and into the freezing Arctic sea. The superbattleship Yamato exploded as it's graviton engine detonated. A huge roar and a flash of blinding light erupted with enough power to cause serious damage to the island and create a huge depression in the ocean.

The Musashi emerged from the explosion unscathed, the blast absorbed by the Klein field.

The Mental Model Yamato sank into the darkness of the deep ocean. She stared upwards at the bright light of the explosion. Submarines from Musashi's fleet passed over her as she sank down.

"I am sorry, Musashi…"

Two large holobands expanded from her chest. They encircled one of the submarines that was passing over her, a Sentoku class.

"Please do this for me…" Then the Mental Model of Yamato disintegrated into silver sand that was lost to the depths.

* * *

Musashi gazed out at the wreckage of the Yamato. Though it had been at the center of the explosion, Fog nanomaterial hulls were extremely durable and could take a considerable beating. The shattered pieces of Yamato's hull sank quickly. Tears streamed from Musashi's eyes now and they were opened, revealing ruby red pupils that were distorted from her tears. With the loss of her dear father Shouzou, she had only one goal, to make humanity suffer. They had already lost so much with the rise of the sea levels that put most coastal cities underwater. And now it was time for them to lose even more. Musashi waited for the quantum disturbances to clear. Yamato's engine explosion had caused massive distortions in quantum wavefront, preventing Musashi from communicating with the rest of the Fog fleet. After almost an hour of waiting, they had stabilized enough to send a transmission. Several bands of light expanded to engulf the Musashi as she connected to the Joint Tactical Network.

"All Fleet of Fog warships, this is Flagship Command. I repeat this is Flagship Command." She waited for the thousands of Fog warships across the world to respond, each one pinging as it received her transmission. "The Fleet of Fog shall initiate a blockade around all continental land that retains human life signs. No human ship or aircraft is to be allowed to breach the blockade. All human trans-continental communication devices, including satellites and undersea cables, are to be destroyed. Patrol routes will be assigned by subordinate Flagships. This is the end of Flagship Command's transmission."

Across the world, the multitudes of Fog heard Musashi's orders, and so began the downfall of humanity. Musashi's tears had stopped, but she still felt sadness. Pushing her emotions aside, she resolved to command this fleet to the best of her ability. The first step in that was to reorganize her personal guard. Yamato had deactivated some of her Nagara class escort cruisers, but Musashi had more. She scanned the rosters and all but one of the submarines that Musashi had sent were accounted for.

"How odd." She commented. The Sentoku class submarine I-401 was missing. It had not been declared sunk, but it was missing. Perhaps Yamato had begun to deactivate her subs before she had interrupted. It was of no great concern to her. She sent what remaining subs she had away. After issuing orders to her subordinates, she sat down and looked up at the life-sized nanomaterial puppet of Chihaya Shouzou that she had created. It brought great comfort to her in this time. She sat down and stared out at the Island that had been caught in the Yamato's engine explosion. A good chunk of it was missing and the heat had been enough to set the island afire.

Then Musashi noticed something was off.

Interference levels were rising in the spot where the island was located. At first she passed it off as the fire causing the interference, but as it grew to beyond anything conceivable, Musashi knew something was very wrong. It was unlike anything she had ever seen in a sensor reading and she possessed the best sensors the Fog had to offer. The interference engulfed the entire region and Musashi started to feel a force on her program firewalls.

Then she heard an explosion. Musashi's eyes snapped to her starboard side as a Nagara automatically self-destructed. This event was repeated until all twelve escorting cruisers that had surrounded her self-destructed in rapid succession. She raised her Klein field and activated her weapons. She guessed the interference had something to do with the mysterious explosions. She tried to scan the island with optical sensors, but smoke from the fires was getting in the way.

Almost in response to her probing, the island exploded.

Musashi detected a brief energy discharge of massive proportions before the island was completely annihilated in a huge fireball. A huge roar engulfed the area and the sea was briefly pushed back before it rushed back in to fill the hole where the island once was as a pillar of fire and smoke rose into the sky. Musashi called on several escorts to come to her aid, taking manual control of them so they would not self-destruct from the interference. Their graviton engines surged to bring them to the site of the explosion, encircling Musashi in a circular formation.

Very quickly, Musashi regretted this decision.

The three escorts that were closest to the pillar of fire were totally annihilated as unknown energy beams tore straight through their Klein fields and punched a hole clean through their thin hulls. Missiles emerged from the flames and pounded into Musashi's Klein field with little effect.

"Huh, a hidden human weapon, this is not going to be a-" Musashi was cut short by two large objects breaking a hole in her Klein field and passing straight through her vessel, entering through her bow and exiting out her stern. Several Super-gravity cannon pods were rendered totally useless and they exploded internally, damaging several systems. Musashi felt the effects and noticed this was not all. Shells of absolutely enormous caliber came flying out of the smoke and hit her Klein field with a loud "BOOM" as they weakened her Klein field by a substantial amount.

Then she saw it.

It was only for a brief moment, but outlined against the fire was the shadow of an astronomically large battleship. She could not make out any details other than the fact that it carried massive equipment. Using her optic sensors, she targeted the unknown battleship and fired at it. Six photon beams left her forward cannons and thirty two Corrosive warheads launched out of their tubes.

To her discomfort, they didn't have any effect.

A hailstorm of laser fire erupted from the shadow and downed all of her missiles, detonating the air and filling the sky with pink explosions. As the photon beams closed in, a blue field of lightning flared and the beams were reflected off with considerably less power in a harmless direction. Her surviving Nagara's were not having any better luck.

She resolved to make a hasty retreat and reassess the threat. Musashi spun her vessel around, sending water cascading as she sidekicked the vessel. Unloading all of her remaining ordinance at the enemy ship, she kicked her engines to full and retreated south towards the Bering strait. As she retreated, she looked behind her. The ship had begun to move and the interference moved with it. She watched as her last Nagara's were completely annihilated before she had gotten far enough away that it became impossible to tell what was going on.

She let out her pent up breath. She had escaped. She had a feeling that no matter how much ordinance she fired that ship wasn't going to die. It was not of human origin at all. Humans did not possess railgun technology and moreover it was such advanced railgun technology that it was capable of penetrating through the Fog's strongest Klein field. On top of that, humans were still using rudimentary lasers as armament for their modern warships, something easily blockable for a Fog warship, but the lasers that ship was using rendered Klein fields useless. And judging by the shadow, that ship was beyond large. No human port could have ever fit a ship of such a size.

She wasn't sure how or why the term for the ship came to her, but it did. It was simple, yet effective, and after recent events, brought a sense of terror to her.

" _Supership"_


	2. Chapter 1: A New Friend

**Chapter 1: A New Friend**

The sun was beginning to set, casting it's final rays onto the waters of Ogasawara Island. Under these waters, a Sentoku class submarine drifted silently through the depths.

The I-401. More commonly known as the Blue Steel.

Gunzou noticed it was rather quiet. After the battle with Kirishima and Haruna at Yokosuka, and successfully retrieving the design child Osakabe Makie from the clutches of the Japanese government, he found that things had been peaceful. Almost too peaceful in fact.

He sat in his command chair looking at the back of Haruna's head. The Blue Steel had captured the Mental Models of the Kirishima and Haruna during the chaos at Osakabe Makie's mansion. They were certainly more peculiar Mental Models. When they encountered Takao's Mental Model, she was normal. And Iona, though she lacked some basic emotions, was normal enough, and Gunzou had been teaching her as much as he could. But here he had a Mental Model in the form of a pink teddy bear with a tag around its neck that said "Present to Makie" and the other Mental Model kept her entire body hidden inside of a huge trench coat that measured from the floor to the middle of her face.

Peculiar indeed.

Well, he wasn't going to argue with it. Each one had their own personality after all. Iona had put Kirishima's and Haruna's cores in lockdown mode, so they couldn't harm the Blue Steel in any way.

"Captain." Sou asked. Sou was Gunzou's best friend, second in command of the I-401. "Don't you find it odd that there have been no signs of the Fog recently?"

"I do. Though I believe we hurt them bad after sinking Kirishima and Haruna." Gunzou responded. It made sense. The two battleships had patrolled large areas near the coasts of Japan. Up until they visited Yokosuka, Gunzou had always attempted to avoid them. Though he wasn't expecting them to show up right as he was picking up humanity's greatest weapon.

The Vibration Warhead.

It certainly was revolutionary enough. Iona had done an analysis on it after they had brought it aboard. It was the only weapon capable of penetrating a Fog warship's Klein field without requiring a breakdown of the Klein field first. As soon as it made contact with the intended target, a relatively small system attached itself to the warship and using several micro-seismic injectors powered by an element known as Somnuim, caused the target to vibrate at its natural resonant frequency. The result was the utter breakdown of micromolecular bonds. In other words, the target dissolved completely. It was definitely an improvement over the Fog's corrosive torpedo.

Though Gunzou began to doubt his mission. He had to transport the last sample of the warhead all the way to the United States of America, literally crossing an ocean of Fog warships along the way. Not exactly inspiring.

"Sou, I wish you hadn't said anything." Said sensor operator Shizuka out of the clear blue.

"Why is that?" He asked in response."

"I am detecting a fleet of Fog Warships approaching us. 17 contacts in total. Sixteen cruisers of Nagara and Sendai class, and one battleship."

"Display on the screens." Ordered Gunzou. Shizuka forwarded the data to the holodisplays. There were the ships in an ASW formation.

"I have identified the battleship. It is the dreadnought battleship Fusou." Said Iona flatly. Gunzou's features tightened. Adding dreadnought to the front of a name never boded well. The holodisplays showed a cross-section of the battleship. Twelve 356mm anti-ship photon Cannons, 158 missile launch tubes and a hefty super-gravity cannon, not to mention the secondary armaments as well as a battleship level Klein field. The I-401's super-gravity cannon was still offline and they were completely out of corrosive warheads.

In other words, they didn't stand a chance.

"They have detected us. I receiving a transmission from the Fusou." Says Shizuka. "On the screens now.

The screens lit up to display the Mental Model of the Fusou. She appeared as a short girl, almost childlike, wearing a simple dark orange kimono. Her long red hair was done up in an uncharacteristic bun. Dark orange eyes looked over the crew of the I-401, calculating before she spoke.

"I am the dreadnought battleship Fusou. I have come here to sink you. If you decide you wish to surrender I may spare your pathetic human lives."

 _"Her voice certainly matches a child's."_ Gunzou thought to himself. "Fusou, we cannot surrender."

"Then prepare to be destroyed. I have no time for useless conversation." The connection ended abruptly. Gunzou frowned. Usually the Fog wished to hold at least a minor conversation, if only to satisfy their own curiosity. He thought that maybe he'd be able to at least talk to Fusou and delay to think up a plan, but he came up with nothing. He knew her type, all she cared about was receiving the orders and getting them done with utmost efficiency.

"Captain, The light cruisers are moving in. We are in big trouble. I am detecting a graviton buildup inside of the Fusou. It's her Super-gravity cannon." Alarmed Gunzou ordered weapons officer Kyohei to dump the last of their infrasound torpedoes and passive decoys. Fusou was already pulling out the big guns. She must have known that the Blue Steel couldn't fight back and was disregarding even simple tactics of battle beforehand. It would be effective no doubt, a quick job, finished with one cannon shot. The light cruisers unleashed a volley of missiles. They peppered the I-401's Klein field, dropping it by 13%. Some of the missiles struck the passive decoys and exploded harmlessly. Gunzou swore under his breath as the infrasound torpedoes were intercepted before they could detonate. Then the sub shook violently.

"Captain! Fusou has a tractor beam lock on us, we can't move." Gunzou shouted his engineer Iori over the intercom, asking her to increase the engine output, but his despair took a plunge when she responded it was already maxed out. The water began to part as the firing tunnel for the Super-gravity cannon was created.

For the first time in a long time, he cursed loudly. They had barely even started their mission and already it looked like they were going to lose terribly to a bad-mannered girl. For the two years he had been taking on the Fog he had outwitted them numerous times either diplomatically or tactically, and there was always a way out. But not this time. He remembered something that an american student said to him once.

"Every dog has his day." Today certainly looked like the Fog's day.

He braced himself for the eventual roaring that would occur. He wondered if his death would be painless. Certainly quick. He looked around the CIC and at one of the holodisplays of the engine room and saw all of his friends. They were the best friends he had ever had and he was sad to have lead them to this fate. Makie hid in Haruna's coat with the teddy bear Kirishima. But Iona sat as stoic as ever.

Then something unusual happened,

The sub shook with a horrendous shudder, but it did not break apart. Shizuka slammed the mute button on her headset while the rest of the crew covered their ears to block out the extremely loud roaring that occured. When the shaking had stopped, everyone uncurled from their balled up positions.

"What the hell just happened?" Asked Kyohei to thin air.

"Gunzou." Shizuka began. "The Fusou...has been disabled. All of the Nagara and Sendai class cruisers...have been completely destroyed."

"More accurate data please Shizuka." Gunzou asked in response.

"One moment…." The holodisplays reappeared. "Fusou has been disabled. The sonar is showing her on an exactly 14 degree tilt to her starboard side. No sign of any wreckage of the light cruisers, but there is huge nanomaterial response in the area. Ambient temperature levels have skyrocketed and peaked at 2098 Kelvin. Tons of water has been converted into highly energetic steam." She paused and gasped. "Captain there is an extremely large vessel...I think...entering our sensor range from behind the Fusou. It's positively massive!" The temperature was almost equal to the sun's surface temperature. The fact that a ship could move through it terrified Gunzou.

"Is it a superbattleship?" Gunzou asked.

"Bigger." Shizuka responded, causing Gunzou great distress. "In fact it is far more massive than anything we know about. It isn't giving off any graviton readings at all, and…..I can't even analyze it. I am assuming it is a ship, but it honestly could be anything." Shizuka turned around in her chair. "Captain the unknown entity is giving off a large amount of unusual interference. I cannot penetrate it for some reason.

Gunzou assessed what was on his plate. A ship larger than a superbattleship that could survive temperatures equal to the sun's surface. It gave off impenetrable interference and was most likely the ship that had disabled Fusou and destroyed all the light cruisers.

Not a pretty prospect.

"Can we initiate contact?" Gunzou asked.

"The quantum wavefront has been heavily destabilized. Effectively our communications are down. It should stabilize in about two hours."

"Then we will surface and meet this...ship directly." Gunzou responded. "Iona, surface the vessel and bring us within optics range of this ship. Will your Klein field be able to withstand the heat?"

"Ambient heat temperatures are falling unusually quickly, it won't be long now before it is safe to go outside. But yes, the Klein field will block any heat that is detrimental to the vessel." She responded. This time, though she hadn't been on edge during the battle, Gunzou thought he heard a sense of relief in her voice. He would remember to keep a close eye on her. The I-401 breached the surface and Iona put the ship in a turn to avoid Fusou's listing hulk. The optical sensors revealed a devastating scene.

Gunzou wondered at the damage that Fusou had sustained. There was not much left of the Fusou's hull except for what was left at the waterline. The entire upper portion of the ship was completely gone, melted to slag by the unexpected temperature. Anything that wasn't already melted was on fire, burning a pinkish glow and casting brown smoke into the air. As the I-401 passed by the hulk, water sloshed inside, causing the list to increase slightly.

"Iona, turn the optical sensors towards the source of the interference.

"Let's go see who our savior is." Said Kyohei.

The sensors turned towards the source of the interference. Gunzou wondered what it was. It had to be some sort of vessel, however he did not know of any vessel that could produce such a devastating result. The sensors stopped.

And everyone's jaw dropped.

The vessel drifting towards them was absolutely massive, far larger than even the biggest warships ever put to sea. It put even the fleet carriers of old to shame. The sun continued it's slow descent into the eternal horizon, outlining the vessel in shadow. It was not a Fog vessel. Gunzou guessed that much. The Fog would never need to build something so big for what they were doing and moreover, the vessel had no Fog tribal markings. It was flat dark grey, yet somehow it seemed to shine. A huge cannon array was mounted on the bow measuring almost as large as the I-401 that glowed a sinister deep red. Several bulbous protrusions sprouted from the deck that shimmered eerily with lights of different colors, there was a twin turret near the massive superstructure and huge flak cannons laced the sides of the vessel.

"Gunzou, I think I see someone on the prow of the ship." Said Sou.

"Iona, can you enhance the image?" Gunzou asked. She did so and to his surprise, Sou was correct.

There was someone there.

* * *

The girl heaved a sigh. Firing a weapon like the one she possessed took a lot out of her. She sat down and watched as the Fog submarine slowly approached her vessel.

She was definitely a sight to look at, enveloped from the shoulders down to her kneecaps in a sort of wispy orange fiber substance that glittered and glowed as it waved through the air. Her long dark orange hair fluttered in the wind. Her eyes were the same shade as her hair, a dark orange that glittered with a curiosity as she studied the Fog vessel before her. There was not a single imperfection to mar her beautiful features.

The submarine stopped at 100 yards distance. She could feel the gaze of foreign technology staring her down, making her feel uncomfortable. She had not counted on this meeting. However there was no way she could unsee what she had saw. Fog extermination fleets do not attack submarines of their own kind without a very good reason. Damn her patrols, she was going to give this a closer look. She refreshed her language banks, which half of the words she had no clue what they meant. She accelerated her vessel to a quarter speed, and on a second thought extinguished her lasers and oriented all her barreled weaponry to their highest elevation. Hopefully the submarine would see it as a non threatening gesture. She detected a buildup of energy in the sub, but it made no attempt to retreat. A neutral sign at least. Then a hatch on the submarine's conning tower popped open. And to the girl's surprise two humans emerged from the sub.

Now things were getting interesting.

Humans aboard a Fleet of Fog submarine. She hadn't been expecting that. It certainly explained why the Fog had attacked the sub. Perhaps this sub was a rogue or the humans somehow stole it. The girl's eyes focused in on the smaller human, whom she isolated as not a human, but a Mental Model. Judging by the intermittent quantum transmissions between the girl and the submarine, she guessed it was the controller of the sub. The other human was a taller man who wore a suit with a red undershirt and a tie. He seemed official. Perhaps he was the captain. The girl had so many questions. She felt the excitement rising within her. This would be the first time since she had awoken that she would get to speak to another non affiliated entity. The two ships were now within boarding distance of each other, however given the height above the waterline discrepancy between the two vessels, she doubted they could have possibly made it up to her deck even if they wanted to.

"Greetings!" Shouted the man up to her in Japanese. "My name is Chihaya Gunzou. I am the captain of the Fog submarine I-401. Me and my crew assume that you destroyed our assailants and we appreciate it. If possible, could you give us your name and affiliation." For a moment, the girl froze, not sure how to respond. Then she let her excitement take over. Standing up from her sitting position on the bow, she leaped across and down the intervening space to land gracefully on one of the I-401's conning tower railings. Chihaya Gunzou and the Mental Model stepped back in surprise.

"Greetings to you as well. I am the Supership Trollslegur. My personal name is Tya. A pleasure to meet you." Chihaya Gunzou appeared thoughtful before answering her. He indicated the Mental Model.

"I am sorry for not introducing my consort. This is Iona, the Mental Model of the I-401. We both wish to express our gratitude. Without your timely intervention, we would have been destroyed." The two of them bowed unexpectedly.

"I see. You are most certainly welcome. My sensors indicated you were under heavy attack. I figured that the Fog do not usually send a fleet of ships to sink one vessel, so I knew there was something wrong. You did nothing to spur the attackers did you?"

"We did not. We are on a mission and we were heading back to our supply base when we came under heavy attack." Gunzou replied.

"I see. Forgive my mannerism, this is the first time I have had a chance to talk to someone other than a member of my own kind, so if I offend you in any way I apologize in advance." Tya responded. She had no urge to be rude and her curiosity was now beginning to overtake her excitement. She wanted to know more about these people and what they were doing. She had just incinerated a Fog attack force, so it was doubtful she would run into anyone else if she continued patrols. She composed herself. What she really wanted was to accompany them so she could learn.

After all, she had came into this world with almost nothing.

"You seem confused. Is something bothering you?" Asked Gunzou.

"Well...you see my knowledge of the world is quite lacking and I have been awaiting an opportunity to learn more about the seas I sail. If it is not too much trouble, may I accompany you at least for the time being? You probably can provide me with a wealth of knowledge that I would not have otherwise." Gunzou adopted his thoughtful face again.

"That is something I would have to discuss with the rest of my crew. Iona, can you keep our guest entertained until I come back?" She nodded and Gunzou disappeared down the hatch, leaving the two girls alone with each other. They assessed each other. Tya noted that for a submarine, Iona appeared to have the capability to process far more than what was needed for a submarine to function.

"You are a human." Said Iona. "You control that vessel do you not?" Iona pointed to the huge battleship looming behind Tya.

"Yes I do. In your terminology, I am a Mental Model, however I possess a natural body." Tya responded. She hadn't expected the question and a slight redness appeared in her cheeks.

"I see. You are not of Fog origin, yet I highly doubt that you were created by humans. Who do you belong to?" Tya paused for a second. She was not sure whether she should reveal who she belonged to. But after giving it some thought, she chose to reveal it. She had nothing to lose by saying it.

Especially since she didn't know who built her either.

"I am affiliated with the Virshian Navy. I am a Supership, first ship of my class, Laser Battleship Trollslegur. The Virshian Navy is comprised of nothing but Superships. Unfortunately I cannot tell you my origins. I don't even know who constructed me or what I was even made to do. For the time being, I have been patrolling this area. It was only mere chance that I detected you and your assailants. I have nothing to go on other than the fact that I simply execute commands when they are given to me." Iona, who's face up until that point had been rather devoid of emotion, suddenly let a small smile appear.

"So you are like me." Iona responded. "I know nothing else other than what Gunzou has taught me. I only know one order, and that is to obey Gunzou in every situation." Tya's eyes glimmered as she processed this. She felt the excitement swirling inside of her again, mixing with her unending curiosity. She wanted to know more about Iona, about Chihaya Gunzou and everything else imaginable. Even if Gunzou denied her request to accompany them, she would follow behind. Her sensor range exceeded that of the I-401's projected sensor range, and it was far more detailed. She asked more questions about the I-401 and Iona's responded to every one, her small smile still present on her face.

"Tya." Gunzou said, reappearing out of the hatch. "I discussed your coming with us to our supply base. They are uneasy, but I believe they have every right to be. I mean no offense of course." Gunzou held up his hands.

"It is alright." Tya responded. She understood that just her appearance to humans might instill a sense of fear.

"That being said, they have left the decision to me. You saved us from certain death, and you ask of us a request we can return. You may accompany us to our base of operations. There Iona and I can give you at least a portion of what you desire. We can also discuss further relations there." Gunzou offered his hand. "It was a pleasure meeting you Tya."

"Likewise." She responded, shaking his hand firmly. She released it and on a single toe, she spun around and launched herself upwards higher than any ordinary human could possibly leap and landed on the deck of the Trollslegur. Her bridge windows glowed and the she activated her sensors. The graviton buildup inside of the I-401 was released as soon as it's engines were activated. It began an easy pace at 18 knots. Tya received a radio transmission that bypassed the quantum distortions and got directions. She noted that the direction was towards the islands known in her databanks as Iwoto. She guessed that was where the base was located. The Trollslegur began a slight vibration as it's engines began to push the huge vessel through the water.

"Maybe I will learn where I come from this way." Tya said to herself. She would see where the path she had chosen would take her.

* * *

Gunzou watched as Iona dived over the edge of the conning tower into the ocean. They had circled back around near the Fusou and had detected a union core as they passed by. It appeared that the Mental Model of the Fusou had survived the Trollslegur's attack. She was found floating in the water, intact, but certainly looking worse for wear. Her kimono had been burned partially by the heatblast and her hair was a ragged blackened mess.

A lucky breakthrough. Perhaps they would learn something about the Fog from her. Though when Iona brought Fusou aboard, she was unresponsive. Her core had submerged itself in self-hibernation and could only be unlocked using special equipment that the Blue Steel only possessed at their base.

Gunzou looked back out at the Trollslegur through the displays. It had matched their speed, and he decided that it was safe to bring it with them. He was going to try everything he could to garner the support of Tya. It seemed by her responses she wished to join the Blue Steel unofficially. Iona had told him that she was a Supership of the Virshian Navy, but Gunzou had never heard of such a navy, neither from his time at the academy or from his experiences out at sea.

Despite Tya's younger appearance, he couldn't help but get the impression that the Supership she controlled was ancient. It projected the kind of power that most people only recognized in an extremely powerful elder. Nevertheless, if he could persuade her to join the Blue Steel...

 _"Then our mission might be a lot less painful than I initially thought."_


	3. Chapter 2: The Beauty of Iwoto

**Chapter 2: The Beauty of Iwoto**

The trip to Iwoto was tedious. The maximum speed of the Trollslegur was 38 knots and while that was more than impressive for a ship of that size, it was still much slower than a Fog vessel, meaning more time in the water to be exposed to enemy attack. Gunzou told himself it was not worth risking the safety of his friends and the Vibration Warhead to go on ahead with the I-401 and it's superior speed. And while he was certain that Tya would assist them if another battle happened again, he didn't want to have to deal with the stress of another battle. For all he knew things may not go well a second time. He was lying on his bed in his quarters, mulling over the events of the past couple days.

They had made contact with a supership. Gunzou had done as much probing as was possible on a Virshian Navy, but there were no records of such a navy, nevermind a country that would own such a navy. Iona also told him that the "Mental Model" of the supership, Tya, was not comprised of nanomaterial. Rather she was almost entirely human.

All except her brain.

Iona had told him that there was some sort of dark machinery inside her head where a human brain would be. Her scans couldn't penetrate the smog that was swirling inside Tya's head. On top of that, it was impossible to get any detailed scans from the supership itself since it produced so much interference. So apart from what they could figure out from looking at the ship directly, they had no technical info. Another reason to be weary. But on the outside Tya seemed bright and happy enough. And if they could bring her to their cause, then the Fog may not hinder them nearly as badly on their trip to San Diego. Gunzou was still very weary of her though. It seemed too odd of a request that she made. She barely even knew any members of the Blue Steel and yet she wanted to accompany them for the purpose of "Obtaining knowledge."

He didn't like that. Especially when she spoke the Japanese language rather fluently, unbefitting of a girl who claims to have a lack of knowledge.

Nonetheless even if he had denied her request he had a feeling that she would have followed them. She took far too much interest in the Blue Steel than was strictly necessary. She had insinuated that there were more superships than just herself in the Virshian Navy, which Gunzou thought scary. Without prior knowledge, he could not understand where they stood on the global scale. Right now there were two powers, Humanity and the Fleet of Fog. If this Virshian Navy comes in as a third power, how might they view the situation in the world? Gunzou resolved to ask Tya some questions the next time they encountered each other.

Gunzou forced himself out of bed. He glanced at the clock and after running the math, determined they must have arrived at Iwoto by now. Wearily he made his way to the command center, where only his best friend Sou was present.

"Ah Gunzou. We just entered the waters of Iwoto. I was about to call for you."

"Thank you, what is it you needed?" Gunzou asked. He stopped next to Sou's chair.

"Where should we ask Tya to drop anchor? There is no way that she would be able to fit in our underground dock and I doubt she has the ability to dive in the first place." Sou pulled up a display on his personal laptop of the island of Iwoto plus an optical scan of the Trollslegur and handed the PC over to Gunzou. He glanced over it quickly. Sou was right. Tya's supership, the Trollslegur, was far too large to fit in the docks and though he didn't know what Trollslegur's full capabilities were, it was reasonable to assume it could not submerge.

"Have Tya drop anchor here." Gunzou pointed to a location behind the island. "I highly believe that since we are bringing Kirishima and Haruna with us that the Fog will learn of this base. This is ok, since we are running low on supplies here anyways, we are going to have to abandon it one way or the other. But if they send a fleet to attack us, I don't want Tya having to receive the brunt of the fire unless she decides to herself."

"Very well. I will send her the coordinates as well as a path to get to the base." Said Sou. He took the computer back and started hastily typing information into it. Gunzou circled around him and plopped himself into his chair. The I-401 dove from the surface as the Trollslegur made a slight heading adjustment. The sub approached the island and at that moment the holographic projection of an underwater portion of the island disappeared. It then floated into the tunnel that the projection revealed into the underground dock. Gunzou breathed a heavy sigh before noticing Iona wasn't on the bridge like she usually was.

"Sou, where did Iona go?" Gunzou asked. It was unlike Iona to just vanish.

"She is retrieving the others. I sent her." Sou responded. Gunzou nodded approvingly and right at that moment, Iona returned with all the members of the Blue Steel. Kyohei had clearly just woken up and Shizuka had wet hair. Gunzou assumed that she had taken a shower. Kirishima, Haruna, and Makie were there as well. Even Iori had found some time to come up after mucking around in the engine room. Gunzou was proud of the girl. He asked a lot of her and constantly threw problems at her that he wished he didn't have to and all she did was complain a little. She made a fine crew member.

"So captain, what's up." She asked in her casual happy manner.

"We just arrived at Iwoto." Gunzou responded. As if to confirm his statement, the I-401 surfaced and the docking clamps thudded into the hull of the I-401, preventing it from moving. At that moment, Gunzou noticed Iona blink and she tilted her head.

"There is something strange here."

"What exactly Iona?" Kyohei asked. Rather than responding, Iona displayed an image on the holodisplays and everyone's jaw dropped.

There on the holodisplays was the heavy cruiser Takao.

Gunzou's head whirled. The last time they had encountered the Takao was on their way to Yokosuka. They had managed to defeat her by using the I-401's Super-gravity cannon, which was how it broke to begin with. They had set her core on lockdown and ordered her to retreat into international waters. So what the blazes was she doing in the middle of his port facilities? And moreover, how did she even find this place? The island had several powerful emitters that jammed all forms of detection equipment and effectively cloaked the island. One could not find it unless they followed the I-401 to it. And yet somehow she was here ahead of them.

"Captain, what should we do?" Shizuka asked. Gunzou pondered this for a moment. It didn't appear there was a struggle. There was no damage to the island or the port facilities.

"Iona, is Hyuuga alright?" Gunzou asked.

"Yes she is. She has come down to the docks." Iona responded.

"If Hyuuga hasn't been taken captive, then everything must be ok. Lets just go ashore and see what is going on." Kyohei gaped at him, but said nothing.

* * *

Tya wondered at the feeling she was experiencing. Here at Iwoto, the weather was nothing but perfect. Warm winds and a mellow sea greeted her as she dropped anchor at the coordinates that were provided to her. A long stairway shimmered into existence that lead down to the island's beach from the prow of the Trollslegur and Tya took it. She sighed a beautiful sigh as she planted her bare feet into the soft sand of the beach. It was the first time she had stood on something other than cold hard metal and the feeling was beautiful. She didn't want to move and for a minute, she didn't. She spread her arms out and felt the wind as it moved around her. He hair fluttered in the breeze. However she did not want to delay either. There was more to be learned. She strode forward, the staircase behind her vanishing from existence. She followed her directions down a clear dirt pathway as the trees arched over her head. She loved the sounds of birds and could make out several in the trees. One fluttered down to her and Tya held out her arm. The young bird landed on it with a chirp and it looked at her with red eyes. She didn't know what kind of bird it was, but it made no move to fly away. She perched it on her shoulder without resistance. It was a striped grey and white bird, which reminded her of her vessel. She would keep it as a pet.

Eventually, she came upon the entrance to the port facilities. It was a small building of brick. Inside was an elevator that she rode down. It brought her straight to the docks. She already missed the feeling of the dirt path. However there was excitement to be found here. She saw the I-401 docked next to a Fog heavy cruiser, which piqued her curiosity. So there was more to the Blue Steel than met the eye.

Tya knew that cruiser too.

She made her way to the gaggle of humans that were present at the docks. Two were engaged onboard the heavy cruiser. A teenage girl with long blue hair and blue eyes wearing a white dress and black pantyhose was exchanging blows with another woman, who appeared in her twenties with amber eyes and medium length brown hair, her clothes consisting of a dark sweater with a lab coat thrown over it, dark stockings, and a monocle over her right eye.

They were Mental Models. Two very different ones at that.

Tya strode over to the group that contained Gunzou, who was chuckling at the scene on board the heavy cruiser. Clearly there were not any issues. For the first time, she would be meeting the rest of the I-401's crew, not just Iona and Chihaya Gunzou. It was clear not all of his crew was made of humans. In fact, including Gunzou, there were only five other humans. The rest Tya identified as Mental Models. Certainly a strange group. The two human girls noticed her approach and turned to greet her.

"You must be Tya." said the girl wearing a singlet, cargo pants and heavy gloves. She took off her gloves and held out her hand. "My your a pretty one. My name is Iori, engineer of the I-401. That is a rather beautiful Japanese Sparrowhawk you have there." Tya smiled and shook her hand. The bird chirped in response to Iori's complement. So it was a Japanese Sparrowhawk. Tya filed the information away. The other girl, who wore a purple top over a white shirt and jean shorts, piped up behind Iori.

"I'm Shizuka, the sonar operator. A pleasure." Tya shook her hand too.

"Tya, controller of the supership Trollslegur." Tya responded to the two girls. She already liked them. Humans definitely didn't seem bad at all. "This place is massive, you guys built all this yourselves?" Before they could answer, Gunzou joined the conversation.

"It is an old military base that was used during the war against the Fleet of Fog 17 years ago. We took it since humanity had to abandon it once the Fog won the war." Gunzou pointed to the girl with the lab coat on board the cruiser. "Hyuuga remodeled it into a port that could service Fog warships."

"I see. Quite impressive." Tya responded. Gunzou turned and called Iona over.

"Iona, could you show our guest around the island. I will handle the things here." She nodded and indicated Tya to follow her. Tya regretted that she couldn't introduce herself to the others, but there would be another time.

* * *

Iona considered Tya strange, but she liked her. During their tour, she had gawked at everything, especially marveling at the mass of data the Blue Steel had in the library section in the recreation center. Now they stood together on the beach, where Iona had ended her tour. It was almost dusk, the sun casting a deep orange glow across the island. Iona noted that Tya seemed to be enjoying herself quite immensely. She had a smile on her face, and was humming a tune as she stared out at the infinite ocean. The sparrowhawk had not left her shoulder, and instead had nestled itself into the crook of Tya's neck where it had fallen asleep. Iona noted it as an irregularity. Birds were not known for simply flying up to people and sleeping on them.

"Tya, why are you so happy?" Iona asked. It didn't seem natural that Tya was as happy as she was displaying.

"I am grateful." She responded. "No, thankful. With your information you have, perhaps I can decipher my own existence."

"Existence?" Iona tilted her head. She wasn't sure what Tya meant. Tya turned to her.

"Iona, I told you this already, but I barely know anything about myself or the world around me. I asked to come with you because you have more experiences than I do. You and Chihaya Gunzou are the first people I have ever made contact with and are the only ones that have yet to try and attack me or resist me."

"Have you been under assault too?" Iona asked. Tya sighed and the smile left her face.

"For the past 857 cycles of the sun that I have been cognizant of my surroundings I have intermittently attacked the Fog and fended off retaliations from them. I am not allowed to make any sort of contact with humans living on the mainland. It would also appear that the Fleet of Fog are not only my enemies, but enemies of the entire Virshian fleet." There was that word again. Iona knew Gunzou had wondered about who or what the Virshian fleet was and she had been just as perplexed by it. She had done several searches on human databanks and came up with nothing.

"What is the Virshian fleet? It is a question that I have been processing for quite some time now." Iona asked. Gunzou had said the best way to find out an answer to a question was to ask. Tya smiled again.

"I am not at liberty to tell you much about my fleet. All I am willing to say right now is that it is a fleet of Superships. We vary in purpose, but we are apparently working towards a common goal." Tya looked back out at the ocean. "Once I learn more about the world then I will inform you more about what I do happen to know." Iona filed away the information. She had already known the Virshian fleet was comprised of superships, but Tya had just said they vary in purpose, which meant different ships. Not a huge lead, but it was a a start. Iona felt a ping inside of her. Gunzou was calling her.

"Tya, Gunzou wants us. It is almost time for dinner." Iona said.

"I think I would like to spend a little more time out here." Tya answered. "Please tell him I will be arriving shortly." Iona wasn't sure how to respond to that, but she nodded and left, following the path back to the base. But she turned to look back.

Tya was still standing there, staring out at the ocean unmoving. Iona found that she enjoyed being in her presence. She was neither human, nor Fog, nor a design child like Osakabe Makie. She was a new influence on her existence.

Iona resolved to tell Gunzou what she had learned so far. Turning back, she disappeared down the path.

* * *

The sun still cast it's shine across the ocean. As it faded slowly away with the night's approach, the sea began glowing softly with the green and blue light of marine creatures. A beautiful sight.

All the creatures scattered as a massive vessel slid through the waters near Iwoto, just outside of sensor range. The light reflected off the gigantic drill on the bow and flashed through the barrels of the oversized gatling cannons that lay at rest, covering the brown pallor of the ship with that of the sea's flowing beauty.

'Supership Arahabaki connecting to |Superior| / Reason-Information Relay / : -War Event- detected in patrol zone. Sector 10293-A. Supership Trollslegur detected engaging Fleet-of-Fog alongside Fleet-of-Fog Defectors without directive. !Alert! New Information Received-Supership Trollslegur abnormal core fluctuation detected. Core contained inside Life. Supership Trollslegur has abandoned designated patrol zone. Current location: Island of Iwoto. Supership Arahabaki requesting directive.'

'Superior to |Supership Arahabaki|: -Monitor Directive- Clarify:Monitor Trollslegur actions. Priority: Maximum. All other priorities rescinded.'

'Supership Arahabaki: …'

[Pause of exactly 3.0 seconds]

'...Confirm directive.'

'Superior: Directive confirm. Repeat. -Monitor Directive- Clarify:Monitor Trollslegur actions. Priority: Maximum. All other priorities rescinded.'

'Supership Arahabaki: Directive Confirmed. Sensors operating at maximum capacity. Disconnecting from |Superior|'


	4. Chapter 3: The Diplomatic Approach

**Chapter 3: The Diplomatic Approach**

The whole crew of the I-401 huddled around the operation table. On the cold surface lay the Mental Model Fusou. The time had come where they would reactivate her and see if they could glean any information about the Fog off of her. Iona felt a strange sensation stirring in her core as she watched Hyuuga make the preparations. It would be a quick operation. Hyuuga was the only Mental Model equipped with encryption plugins, which is why she was the one who had to wake Fusou up.

"Chihaya Gunzou. I can wake up Fusou in several different states. The first would be complete lockdown of everything except core functions. The second would be selective lockdown applied at your discretion, and the third would be to give her full functionality back, though I would advise against this." Said Hyuuga. Gunzou pondered this. Reactivating Fusou would prove to be dangerous, especially since they could simply rip the information they wanted out of her without doing anything to restore her. But he wanted to give an equal opportunity to the Fog, otherwise he wasn't much better than they were.

"Reactivate her core selectively. Disable quantum communications and personal Klein systems, but restore her bodily functions including speech and movement." Hyuuga nodded and she placed her hand on Fusou's breast.

"Initiating connection." She said. Her hand began to glow with a warm yellow light that for some odd reason seemed to calm everyone's nerves. Everyone huddled in a little closer to the operating table. Fusou began to shiver, but Hyuuga's expression was impassive. Gunzou wondered what exactly was going on inside the virtual world of the Fog.

Fog technology had always made an impression on Gunzou. Like most people he saw the lightyears of advancement that could be made if even one person could figure out just how the hell Fog technology worked. Humanity had over 17 years to come up with theories and even had a specimen to test it on, the I-401. But all tests came back totally inconclusive. The only result was the complete rewriting of all theories of physics and quantum mechanics as the old models were rendered useless. However even those rewritten theories proved useless as well. Nothing could explain the Fleet of Fog's mysteries.

But as Gunzou glanced over at Tya, who was watching the operation with a look of extreme interest, he saw something that was more terrifying than the Fog in terms of technological advancement. He didn't even know a tithe of the abilities that Tya's vessel possessed, and for that matter just how far those abilities extended. But he full well knew that a ship of the Trollslegur's size and capability should for all intents and purposes not exist. And yet the evidence was parked right offshore. Gunzou's gaze turned back to Fusou. She was starting to writhe, but Hyuuga made no move to stop her. Finally her movement slowed. The glow from Hyuuga's hand faded and she removed it.

"Everyone, meet the dreadnought battleship Fusou." Said Hyuuga in an exceptionally pleasant voice, which threw Gunzou off for a second. Fusou's eyes blinked twice before she sat upright. She turned and assessed her onlookers with a look of extreme disdain. Gunzou had to suppress the urge to smile. She was making an attempt at being intimidating, although it is hard to achieve that when your shorter than all your opposition. The fact that they had also saved her made this doubly difficult.

Then her eyes locked on Tya, who seemed genuinely confused as to why she Fusou had caught her eye.

Fusou's fists balled up and in a lightning quick move lashed out at Tya, who caught the punch square in the jaw that sent her flying across the room to land heavily against the opposing wall. The sparrowhawk on her shoulder screeched and it fluttered to land on the overhanging light. Fusou made a move to lunge off the table and go after Tya, but then she fell on the floor comatose.

"Uh uh uh that's not going to be happening again." Said Hyuuga. She moved her hand and almost mechanically Fusou stood up, walked back to the table, and sat down, her expression now blank. Hyuuga bent over so her face was level with Fusou's. "I have complete control of your union core. Try something like that again and i'll put you back into hibernation."

It took Gunzou's mind a second to process what had just happened. Tya was sprawled out on the floor. Shizuka had knelt down beside her and was checking to make sure she was ok while the rest of the crew stood over them. Fusou was spitting hatred at Tya over Hyuuga's shoulder.

"YOU NASTY HAG I'LL KILL YOU! YOU RUINED EVERYTHING!" Gunzou was appalled at the words she was using, though fortunately Tya seemed too dazed to care. A quick snap of Hyuuga's fingers and Fusou's tirade immediately ceased, her mouth clamping shut.

"Fusou, you are here in our base at Iwoto as a captive. I am Chihaya Gunzou, the captain of the I-401." Said Gunzou. He wasn't sure how to approach Fusou. Most Mental Models were amenable to talking, but Fusou appeared to be either unwilling to speak or speak in a furious tone with no inbetween calm.

"Kirishima, Haruna. Why are you here?" Asked Fusou, completely ignoring Gunzou's question. "And Hyuuga. You were supposed to be sunk, how are you here?" Gunzou found himself slightly put off by the sudden change of tone.

"We are technically captives too." Said Haruna. "The Blue Steel assisted us in escaping from the Japanese Government and defending Osakabe Makie, which is why we are here." Makie's head popped out of Haruna's coat at the sound of her name. The pink bear beside Haruna assumed the best defensive stance a bear could, but said nothing.

"Weaklings. Two supposedly esteemed Fog battleships and you failed to take down one submarine? That's so pathetic." Fusou assumed a taunting expression.

"Now now Fusou." Said Hyuuga, jumping in. "You got destroyed too, so you are in no position to talk. Likely if the I-401 had corrosive torpedoes left and wasn't as badly damaged as it was it would have escaped you too."

"That would never have happened except that bastard woman decided to interfere." Fusou shot Tya a withering look, who was still holding her jaw as she gazed impassively back at her. "It isn't everyday that a massive ship decides to stick its nose where it doesn't belong." Gunzou just let his head fall and composed his thoughts before speaking up.

"Regardless, why did you attack us?" He asked.

"Orders from Kongo." Fusou said demurely. "Just to let you know, she is on her way here right now with a large attack force as reassurance in case you managed to escape from me, which you did." Gunzou was already expecting this line. Bringing Kirishima and Haruna was probably going to alert the Fog to where their base was anyways. He just saw it as a deadline for abandoning the base.

"When will she be here?" Sou asked.

"By tomorrow. Considering the damage you sustained, your not going to be escaping." An evil grin appeared on Fusou's face. "This time you're definitely going to be crushed."

"Huh, so the almighty flagship of the Black Fleet is going to grace us with her presence." Said Kyohei. "Interesting."

"Hyuuga, when will the I-401 be operable again?" Gunzou asked. For some odd reason a plan had formed in his mind and hopefully they would be lucky.

"Tomorrow. I have to restock weapons and finish repairing the Super-gravity cannon." She responded.

"Then let's invite Kongo to our beach!" Said Gunzou as a smile broke out on his face, completely ignoring the fact that everyone's jaws were planted firmly on the floor.

* * *

Tya was not sure how she found herself on the beach the next day. Her jaw had healed thanks to her extreme regeneration, and together with Iona, she was waiting for the Kongo to arrive. Her sensors onboard the Trollslegur detected dozens of Nagara and Naygara class cruisers coming from all directions, surrounding the island and blockading all hope of escape. From the beach, she could see the two main vessels. A black battleship with purple streaks was advancing leisurely towards them. Beside it was a deep pink heavy cruiser that exacerbated the color with bright pink marks. They halted several kilometers away from the island. Gunzou had filled her in on the plan. Try to convince Kongo to see things their way, and if that didn't work, which it probably wouldn't, to battle their way out. Takao had agreed to assist the Blue Steel, and Gunzou had seen fit to trust her with a Vibration Warhead, which Tya had assumed was a human superweapon. Strangely though, he hadn't asked for her help in the matter.

She missed her sparrowhawk. She had decided to name it Volt for no particular reason. It had taken a liking to her. Currently it was inside of a room that Tya had fabricated inside the Trollslegur specifically to house it, taking samples from Iwoto to give it a more natural feel. The bird gave her a strange comfort. She looked over at Iona, who was wearing a orange one-piece swimsuit while Tya remained in normal attire. She actually wore no clothing whatsoever, but her core produced so much energy that she was able to materialize said energy as a physical object, which she happily wrapped around herself as a dress of glowing orange. Being made of energy, she was able to change it into whatever she desired, and in this case had created a two-piece swimsuit of the same color as Iona's except that it glowed softly. Iona looked back at her and smiled slightly.

Then Tya saw movement out of the corner of her eye and looked back out to sea to find two Mental Model's striding towards them, hovering slightly over the ocean as they walked on holographic projections. One was a girl in her late teens with black hair down to her waist and blue eyes wearing a red and white dress. A large plastic badge with a smiley face was hooked on to her dress. The other was a taller young adult and had very long pale-blonde hair done up in two spiky buns. She had pale skin and wore pale blue lipstick. Compared to the first girl, her clothes were bland consisting of a dark purple gown that had no other defining features with a dark pantyhose. Two crimson eyes locked on her. Tya scanned the quantum range and identified the two girls, the one in red being the heavy cruiser Maya and the purple one being the battleship Kongo. They stepped on land and Kongo waved Maya off, who picked up a stick and began drawing in the sand while Kongo regarded Iona and Tya with a look of pure curiosity.

"Superbattleship Trollslegur. I am surprised to see you here." Said Kongo. Tya at first was shocked that Kongo knew who she was.

But then she remembered this was not the first time they had met.

"Long time no see Kongo." Tya responded. Kongo's gaze turned to Iona.

"This is the first time we are meeting in the physical dimension I-401."

"You arrived here faster than I predicted." Iona responded. Tya knew that Iona was quite formidable when it came to predicting the future. She had learned that Iona had spent quite some time around humans and knew them very well. Humans were naturally able to conceive of past and future. Accentuating that ability with the processing power of a Mental Model proved very effective at coming up with future scenarios. If she was wrong about a prediction, then that meant that Kongo was better than Iona. Tya resolved to keep Kongo at arms length. Not that she couldn't annihilate Kongo in a duel, but for now it was better to keep appearances. She had received no directives ever since she made contact with the Blue Steel and had assimilated a large amount of knowledge, spending almost all her free time inside of the library section of the Iwoto base. There was no telling how her superiors would respond to what was going on.

"I see." Said Kongo. "Perhaps I overestimated your capabilities. If you excel in predicting the future, then you must know what my next move is."

"Probably." Said Iona.

Then hell broke loose.

Kongo summoned a blade of purple light and slashed out at Iona, who blocked the attack with a shield of blue energy. Kongo spun around in lightning fast maneuvers, sometimes scoring a minor hit on Iona, and other times Iona would land a glancing hit with her shield. Tya wasn't sure what she could do. Heavy cruiser Maya was still drawing in the sand, almost completely oblivious to the battle, therefore she was not a problem. But if Tya interfered with the duel, then there could be serious repercussions.

"That's enough greeting you two."

Tya turned. There was Chihaya Gunzou casually leaning against a tree with a slight grin on his face. Almost immediately the battle of lights vanished.

"You must be Chihaya Gunzou." Said Kongo. Gunzou just let his grin spread farther.

"Welcome to our base of operations. I am Chihaya Gunzou, commander of the I-401."

"Just call me Kongo." Said Kongo. "I do not wish to be called anything else."

"Why don't I lead you to our headquarters where we can have a civil discussion." Said Gunzou. Kongo didn't respond, but nodded and motioned for Maya to follow her. Iona's attire changed in a flash of light to her uniform and Tya let her swimsuit do the same, the suit unraveling to surround her again in her usual glowing dress. Together, the four girls followed Gunzou back to the base.

* * *

Iona opened the door that led into the lounge meeting room. A table was positioned in the center of the room, with leather couches and chairs surrounding the table. Kirishima, Haruna, Takao, Fusou, and Hyuuga were already present. Hyuuga was mixing up some tea using the tea set in the center of the table while the others had a seat. Gunzou took the chair at the head of the table. Kongo and Maya both sat on a different couch. Iona noticed that Tya decided to stand in the corner instead of taking a seat with the others.

"Is that you Hyuuga?" Kongo asked, looking at Hyuuga with an odd expression.

"Of course." Said Hyuuga, as if it were an insult to think she weren't. "So that's the form you prefer to take?" She appraised Kongo with a raised eye.

"This look was formulated based on the automatic algorithms designed to provide maximum energy efficiency. It has absolutely nothing to do with my likes or dislikes." Kongo replied. She turned to Gunzou. "If you invited me here just to play human than I will inform you that I have no urge to participate."

"Now now Kongo it has been so long since we talked." Said Hyuuga. "And I can assure you there is a lot to talk about."

"There is only one thing I wish to communicate to you." Said Kongo, gazing at each of the Mental Models while glancing over Fusou. "You will be destroyed for abandoning the Fleet of Fog." She pointed at Tya. "And I will put you down just because of the damage you have caused during the course of your existence. Tya's eyebrows raised, but she said nothing. Iona had to wonder whether or not Tya had a secret she didn't want to share.

"Kongo. I need to inform you of something." Said Gunzou.

"Speak." She said in a commanding tone. "My time and patience grow thin." Gunzou leaned back in his chair and spoke.

"We have been entrusted with a weapon. One that is capable of defeating the Fog."

"The Vibration Warhead. Yes I know of it." Said Kongo.

"It is the duty of the Blue Steel to bring the Vibration Warhead to the United States of America where it can be mass produced. I am sure you know this, but once this happens Humanity will be able to negotiate as equals with the Fog."

"That will not come to pass." Said Kongo. "You don't believe you can get past my blockade do you?"

"Of course not. But that does bring up my question." Said Gunzou. "I ask this question to all of you. You of the Fleet of Fog possess the power to control the world and you wield it. All it takes is one order and all of humanity will succumb to your power. And yet you don't do it. You blockade the oceans with no rhyme or reason. So why?"

"Why does humanity need to be pushed to the brink of extinction?"

Iona sensed all the Mental Models reacting to Gunzou's question. It certainly was an odd question. She herself could not answer because she had been specifically ordered to follow Gunzou, not the Admirality Code.

All of the Fleet of Fog entities have the Admirality Code embedded into their very existence. Aside from the numerous other rules that form the basis for the Fog's existence, the only directive that confused Fog ships to this day was Rule 478.

'All Fleet of Fog Warships are to form a blockade around any significant landmass that shows signs of human life. All commerce of any form is to be halted.'

There was no particular reason behind it, but rules did not exist to be questioned. And yet the majority of the Mental Models in this room did question the rule.

"Chihaya Gunzou. For the past two years you have been battling against us. In this time you have warped the realities of all the Mental Models you come into contact with. The Fleet of Fog's rules are very clear. Blockade all the seas on the planet and halt all commerce that attempts to pass. Humanity has resisted us for 17 years and it is for that reason that you exist on the brink of extinction. Your world relied on the maritime commerce that passed over the oceans to sustain itself and now it has fallen to ruin, a fault of yours, not ours. Your resisting us only makes it more likely for you to die quicker than you already are. I must ask the question. Why is it that Mental Models flock to your aid in the matter when such clear rules are laid down for us? They form our very existence and yet you all defy them." Said Kongo.

"It's because they aren't free."

Everyone turned to the corner where Tya stood. She stared back at the onlookers.

"All entities that possess self-awareness have a desire to be free. I studied the wording of the Admirality Code when I came here and it treats its obeyers no better than rats stuck in a cage. There is no normal creature that I know of that has a desire to be locked up." Said Tya.

"Stay out of this you hag. Your not part of the Fleet of Fog so you have no right to answer." Said Fusou. Tya decided to not answer.

"No no. She does have a right to answer." Said Gunzou. "Tya, you claim to come from a Virshian Navy. While I don't think any of us have a sense of what that is, I need to ask now for you to clarify for us. What is your navy like in comparison to the Fog?" There was a hushed silence. Tya's eyes were closed and it was some time before she opened them. When she did, Iona felt like a powerful presence had suddenly entered the room.

"There are many qualities of the Virshian Navy that I do not care to discuss." Tya said. "But I will say that it is significantly less binding than what is stated in the Admirality Code. All orders we receive are from our great superior, of whose name we do not know. Only he answers to the Supreme Directive, our direct overlord and Rule Founder. We know not his name either. But there are several directives that are clear to us. We are not allowed to make contact with humans on land or attack them in any way. However we are allowed to study them at range, but there is only so much you can learn from using a telescope. Our primary adversary is the Fleet of Fog. I know this because I have been ordered twice to attack Fog maritime facilities.

"I was there. You caused great damage to our cause all on your lonesome." Said Kongo. "Hyuuga, you are not aware of this because you sank before anything happened despite your former flagship status. Only the Flagships of the Fleet of Fog know of the superships, in part because whenever they appear, there is almost never any survivors of their attacks. I bore witness to your attack Tya and narrowly escaped."

"Wait, did I miss something?" Said Kirishima all of a sudden. "You mean to say these superships have been around here for a while?"

"I have been around for what is now 860 cycles of the sun, for the other members of the fleet I am not sure. At first I was ordered to do simple observation, to discover what was going on in the world without interfering in it. My second order was given to me a year ago. That was to attack a Fog resourcing facility in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. That is where you escaped me Kongo. I destroyed the facility and everyone present except for you, who managed to escape me. Currently, I await my third order and until then have been assigned to patrol the local waters."

"The attacks made by the Virshian Navy on our infrastructure are rare, inconsistent, and most of all an anomaly." Said Kongo. We have witnessed only two superships attack our ports and one of them was you. The other attacks happened so fast that no one could send a signal of distress. We only learned our buildings were destroyed when a ship would sail back to resupply only to find a burning ruin. Assuming the attacks continue, the Fog may take a total war stance."

"The Fog have no chance of defeating the Virshian Navy." Said Tya. "That I can assure you of."

"Chihaya Gunzou. I sincerely hope you do not trust this monster to do your bidding." Said Kongo. "Though you may be my rival, the superships are a threat to us all. Tell me, do you plan on resisting me, or surrendering yourself, your crew, and the Vibration Warhead to us?"

Gunzou didn't respond for a moment. His eyes were closed and he was breathing softly. It was only after a minute of total silence that he spoke.

"Damn all this discussion has made me hungry."

* * *

Kongo found herself on the beach again, sitting in one of the numerous chairs with umbrellas that lined the beachside. The sun was setting and aside from the Fog battleships offshore, everything was rather peaceful. The members of the Blue Steel had come out to play on the beach. The design child Makie was playing with Kirishima, Haruna and Fusou while Takao, Hyuuga, Iona, and Chihaya Gunzou were talking by the campfire.

Kongo heard steps behind her and turned. There was Tya, who positioned herself standing beside the chair. Kongo thought about what she had said in the lounge meeting room. The idea of being able to study humans for anything other than how to defeat them seemed preposterous. Standing before her was a girl who had taken on multiple vessels of the Fog and an entire island worth of defenses and destroyed them all, with Kongo being the only survivor of the event.

That was almost a year ago.

She remembered it clear as day. She was at a Fog extractor complex getting resupplied with corrosive warheads after putting down a human insurrection when a strange interference began to blot out her radar. Using her optics, she saw the terrifying battleship bearing down on the complex. Unknown lasers made the complex defenses pop and melt to slag. It didn't matter how many missiles the defenders launched at the ship. It's impressive flak curtain shot them all down. She only managed to escape by making her vessel dive underwater and even then lasers still managed to heavily damage her. Were it not for the Fog's superior speed, she probably would have perished.

"What are you thinking about Kongo?" Tya asked out of the clear blue.

"Nothing." She responded.

Then Kongo felt a call from the Concept Communication System. She joined it, wondering who it could be.

"T-Trollslegur?!" Kongo stepped back. She had materialized inside of the whitewashed stone pillared room and found Tya standing directly across from her. "How can you be here? Your not part of the Fog Network."

"Aww I can't join in on the fun?" Tya said sarcastically, faking sadness. "Your Concept Communication System is open to anyone with the ability to access it unless you cut someone's signal off completely. Given time I could hack that too, but right now I have complete access."

"Impossible…" Said Kongo. She resolved to calm herself. It wouldn't do good to get worked up over something like this. As soon as this whole situation was resolved she would report the security breach to the Supreme Flagship. Instead she pulled out a white wire chair from under the glass topped table and sat down. Tya mimicked the movement.

"You were thinking about back then weren't you?"

"Naturally. Though I can assure you this time I will win. I have a far superior force with me in a far more strategic placement. Tell me Trollslegur. Do you plan on siding with the I-401?" Kongo watched as Tya's expression became blank. Trying to read what she was thinking about was next to impossible.

"Yes." Tya said quietly. "I didn't say this out loud Kongo, but my first order still applies. Observation is key to what I want to do. I want to learn about the world and everything I can that goes on inside it. I cannot achieve that just sitting around. My directives prevent me from interacting with humans on the land, and the Fog are our enemies. My options are limited when it comes to knowledge gathering in that regard. I recognize that your force is superior, but you forget that I am a supership. I don't know much about even myself, but I do know that my ship is designed for taking on fleets of warships on it's lonesome. That being said, should you attempt to sink the I-401 or any member of the Blue Steel, then there will be a reckoning. I have had a little time to form connections with the members and they provide a spice to existence that no one else has. Forgive the insult, but you are the one who has provided nothing but trouble.

"So you will not back down?" Said Kongo. "The I-401 is a Fog vessel. Siding with it means siding with the enemy."

"No."

"Very well then." Said Kongo. She chose to disconnect from the Concept Communication System. In the physical world, she stood up and strode to the shoreline.

"Where are you going?" Said Gunzou, who had come over to check on her."

"Maya, we are going now." She said. She wouldn't stand around wasting away any longer. Maya sighed.

"Kongo!" Iona gasped as Kongo's body began to dissolve into nanomaterial. It drifted across the ocean all the way back to the deck of the Kongo. Maya was doing the same.

"Chihaya Gunzou. I have found that mimicking the human form creates anomalies even among the superships. As such I took preventative measures to make sure my core was safe from any and all contamination." On the deck of the Kongo, the nanomaterial began to form around the core, rebuilding Kongo's body.

"Wait Kongo please take me with you!" Said Fusou. She had rushed over when she saw the spectacle. Kongo debated this. Bringing her back meant that she had a wealth of knowledge about the humans that the Fog might be able to utilize.

However her contact with the humans meant she could be contaminated. Kongo didn't see a benefit in having the infection spread to the rest of the fleet.

"Fusou. I ordered you to sink the I-401 and this you failed to do. You were given numerous support vessels to do this and yet you still failed. On top of that you allowed yourself to be captured, which means that your mindset could have been affected by Chihaya Gunzou and his reasoning. I cannot allow this cancer to spread to the rest of the fleet."

"But Kongo-"

"Enough. I shall dispose of you with the rest of this rabble. The Fog will return to its rightful way of existence free of the virus that has infected its members. Fare thee well Chihaya Gunzou. Prepare yourself for death."

Then Kongo's body faded away.

Fusou began to cry.

* * *

Gunzou balled up his fists. Almost as soon as Kongo's body had faded away did the bombardment begin. Hyuuga threw her utensils aside and a massive orange Klein field rose around the central part of the island, shielding everyone inside. Missiles descended in droves to shatter against the field.

"You don't really think you can win can you?" Said Hyuuga over a quantum link.

"Of course I do. How long do you think you can keep this up?" Gunzou heard Kongo reply over the link.

Then a missile touched down nearby, creating a large explosion that blew Gunzou off his feet. Hyuuga swore, unable to repair the Klein field fast enough. Gunzou struggled to get up, and he saw another missile descending towards him.

For a moment, he said a silent goodbye.

Then a second grey Klein field shimmered into existence behind the first one, blocking the missile. Gunzou looked over. Fusou had raised her arms into the sky. Tears still streamed down her face, but her expression was that of pure rage.

"Fusou, why are you helping us?" Gunzou asked, genuinely confused by her behavior.

"Simple." She said through clenched teeth. "I don't wanna die. If I stand here and bawl my eyes out I am going to die and I don't want that. You guys have shown me hospitality despite my trying to kill you, so I owe you one. Kongo and the Fleet of Fog apparently don't need me anymore, so I am coming over to you guys's side much as I hate that thought." Gunzou grinned. It seemed their discussions had paid off at least somewhat. Gunzou heard steps. Tya stood on one side of him and Iona on the other.

"Will you help us Tya?" Gunzou asked.

"That isn't even a question."

"Good, then lets break past Kongo's blockade, and get to the United States.


	5. Chapter 4: The Aggressive Approach

**Chapter 4: The Aggressive Approach**

Like Armageddon on Earth, missiles descended from the sky. The huge Klein fields that protected the island of Iwoto flickered as ammunition from the Black Fleet pounded into the massive domes. Several Naygara class cruisers opened up with their small Super-gravity cannons, their powerful red beams slamming into the fields and diminishing them considerably. As the situation stood now, there wasn't a lot of chance of the Blue Steel making an escape from Iwoto alive. Numerous light Nagara cruisers and medium Naygara cruisers surrounded the entire island, blocking all avenues of escape with an inordinate amount of firepower as well as a fast battleship and a heavy cruiser. All the Blue Steel had was one submarine, a heavy cruiser, and a supership. But the supership moved far too slowly to be of much use against the main force.

In other words, not exactly great odds

"Chihaya Gunzou!" Hyuuga shouted. "I am not sure how long me and Fusou can keep the island safe. If your going to execute a brilliant plan do it now. Take Sister Iona and get the hell out of here!" Gunzou nodded in response.

"You got it. You guys, follow me." Gunzou indicated the Mental Models that were not currently occupied and they all followed him. Tya was last in line. He formulated a plan along the way, granted it was not an amazing plan, but even bad plans could net some reward provided they were executed perfectly. Through the forest they dashed, the wildlife being much more active thanks to the sound of cannonfire disrupting their peaceful lives. Birds chirped and squaked as missiles exploded against the giant Klein field. Gunzou ignored it all and brought the crew down to the docks, where I-401 and Takao were still docked, but running.

"Takao. Take the crew of the I-401 aboard your vessel. You already have the Vibration Warhead loaded aboard. Do your best to assist Hyuuga and Fusou since they are already struggling against Kongo. Tya, does your vessel possess long-range missiles?" Tya let a grin appear on her face. For some reason, Gunzou was off put by this grin. It wasn't the kind of grin that you let out when you get complimented or when you hear something funny. It was the kind of grin that signified you would be enjoying a good killing.

"Yes I do. I have both multipurpose and cluster missiles."

"Good, It'll take you too long to circle around the island to assist us against Kongo and Maya, so can you try and suppress the cruisers behind us while launching missiles at the main fleet?" Gunzou asked.

"Oh I can get to the other side of the island really quickly. I just hope Hyuuga doesn't mind the 'Ahem' collateral damage." Tya responded.

"Alright, then let's get this done." Said Gunzou. He wasn't sure what she meant by that but wasn't of a mind to question her right now. He practically shoved his crew on the gangplank leading up to the Takao along with Kirishima, Haruna, and Makie. His plan was rather simple. Have Tya tie up the cruisers behind them with any main armament she had and have Takao interdict Kongo and Maya with the help of Hyuuga and Fusou. With Kongo's fleet occupied, it may be possible for the I-401 to escape through the minefield that existed just south of the island. If all went to plan, Kongo would follow them and Takao would be able to escape with the Vibration Warhead aboard. It was doubtful that Kongo had brought along any more surveillance submarines with her. She was probably banking on the trapping the Blue Steel in Iwoto like fish in a barrel. How Kongo and Maya avoided the minefield journeying to the island was beyond Gunzou, but he wasn't about to let a delaying tactic slip out of his reach. He was already clutching at straws, especially with Fusou acting strangely. At any moment she could just simply decide to let Kongo hit the island before the I-401 and Takao could manage to get away. He also was still completely in the dark on the Trollslegur's capabilities, unsure of whether she could fight off the cruisers behind the island while assisting Takao with missiles.

Gunzou rubbed his temples as he dashed aboard the I-401. There was no telling how long Fusou and Hyuuga could fend off Kongo's attack. Briefly, he turned his head back and saw Tya running for the elevators that led topside of the island. Then he disappeared inside the I-401 and planted himself firmly in the command chair. Iona perched herself on her console.

"What's our status Iona?"

"All green. Hyuuga did a full repair as well as resupplied our corrosive warheads and normal munitions. The Super-gravity cannon is online too."

"Good, release the docking clamps. I-401, set sail!"

* * *

Tya sprinted through the foliage that covered Iwoto faster than any human before her towards her vessel, the Trollslegur. A shimmering staircase appeared leading up to the Trollslegur's deck and Tya bounded up it with incredible speed. She was fortunate. The light cruisers were only just now moving into attacking range of her vessel. Once she had made it to the bridge, she raised her hands into the air.

"Supership Trollslegur activation sequence engaged. Diagnostics complete. Primary directive recognized. Executing standard battle protocols. Targets are enemy forces surrounding the island. Use of all armaments authorized. Objective is to cause a diversion and allow the I-401 to escape the local waters. Electrogravity shields online. Engine at quarter output. Main guns loaded with standard high-explosive rounds. Laser systems activated with Krypton energy. All missile silos loaded with multipurpose missiles. Bringing all armaments to bear on approaching light cruisers."

Underneath her, the great supership rumbled to life. Across her deck, the large laser hardpoints glowed and her main guns turned and locked onto the enemy cruisers approaching on her starboard side. Her shields flared as green and blue lightning cracked around her vessel. Volt flew into the room behind Tya and chirped as several pings sounded in her ear, letting her know that her guns were ready to fire.

"Commence firing."

Four loud booms disrupted the air as the 14 inch guns in their twin turrets salvoed off in sequence. The air shrieked as Particle Cannons and Krypton Lasers opened up on the four light cruisers that were slowly advancing. They didn't stand a chance. The sheer impact force of 14 inch high-explosive shells is enough to put a dent in light cruiser Klein fields, but the Krypton lasers and Particle Cannons did so much more. The Krypton Lasers punched holes straight through the Klein fields of the two forward cruisers, shattering the fields completely and causing them to explode in brilliant pink fireballs. The two other cruisers launched missiles at her, but their pitiful weaponry wasn't about to penetrate an Electrogravity shield. These shields had the capability to block any type of ammunition. Not only that, they regenerated very quickly, and they could be modulated to allow the ship using the shield to fire through it, thus making it a potent defense system. The missiles detonated against the Electrogravity shield and the air cracked with green lightning as the attack was repelled. Tya responded by letting her Particle Cannons and main guns finish off the two cruisers. Hazy blue beams arced in a slight curve to burst against the cruisers already pathetic Klein fields and overload them, the fields shattering into a billion motes of light. Individual shelling from the Trollslegur's main cannons put the cruisers under quickly as the 14 inch shells tore the enemy vessels asunder. Tya let out a breath. Her eyes were glowing a fiery orange now and her dress seemed to be almost burning. She waved her hand and the Trollslegur began to move. Bow impulse thrusters embedded in the hull underwater turned the supership's bow to face the island, but pointing away from the main section of the island where the base was.

"Preparing to fire the Polymerization Cannon at maximum output. All energy not being used for defense is to be redirected to the Polymerization cannon. Engage all feedback resistors and force dampeners. Switching aiming systems to precision mode."

On the bow of the supership, the great cannon began to glow with an unholy red light. The three thin metal fins that comprised the barrel of the cannon the only things keeping the massive amount of energy in check.

Then suddenly, faint visions surfaced in Tya's mind. Her eyes went wide.

"Fire."

* * *

The assault on the Iwoto base was going rather smoothly from Kongo' perspective. She hadn't banked on Fusou joining the Blue Steel in the defense effort, but her fleet was more than strong enough to overcome that little technicality.

She also had a little surprise to seal the Blue Steel's fate.

"Yamashiro. Bring your forces into firing range. It's time we finish this little charade." A ping rang in Kongo's ear, signifying that Yamashiro had received her message. Kongo ordered the fleet to focus their fire on one point, forcing Hyuuga and Fusou to reconfigure the shield to continue to deflect the attack. It wouldn't be much longer before they fell to the firepower of the Black Fleet. Once they were disposed of, they would destroy the island using their Super-gravity cannons and then move in on the Trollslegur. A smile crept on Kongo's face. She would not only be the one to put down I-401, but she would also be the first to take down a supership. The Supreme Flagship would certainly be pleased to hear of this.

Then someone decided to call Kongo over the CCS, which was her term for the Concept Communication System since it was too bothersome to say the whole thing. Not having anything better to do, she accepted it to find herself in the same pillared room. It was Hyuuga who had contacted her.

"Hyuuga, why do you support I-401?" Kongo asked. Hyuuga was the flagship of the Black Fleet before she was sunk by the I-401. When she had been defeated, Kongo took over. Though before Hyuuga never had a Mental Model, instead using her elaborate creations to expand her functions in much the same way a Mental Model did. Kongo was curious as to why Hyuuga both decided to throw her support behind I-401 and create a Mental Model. She did not see herself as a particularly intriguing Mental Model, only wishing to conform to the Admirality Code as much as possible, but she found herself curiously attracted to the unknown, and tended to go to the limit of what the Admirality Code allowed.

"That is a simple question. I love Iona. It's a logic routine that manifested itself within me and that logic will always have top priority. Because I love her, I will fight to protect her." Hyuuga sat down at the table and Kongo took a seat as well. Hyuuga's response puzzled her though. It was most certainly plausible that someone or something altered Hyuuga and gave her that logic. It was also equally possible that she adapted the logic on her own. It was impossible to tell considering that Hyuuga had made contact with humans. Either way it was a detriment to the existence of the Fog.

"Love? Love is an unnecessary concept. I am not sure how you were able to form a Mental Model based on those principals, but either way it is a deviation." Says Kongo.

"It's not too hard to understand. It's just a cessation of thought that comes with freedom of thinking. It's because your too rigid in your thinking and ways that it is impossible to understand such an abstract concept." Hyuuga sighs and lowers her head.

"Love is just as unnecessary as fun. Neither one contribute to the Fog's goals and in fact they detract from it."

"I suggest you reevaluate yourself Kongo. Right now you look quite lonely compared to when you were on the beach." Kongo knew that Hyuuga was just trying to spite her and she wasn't about to let it get to her. Instead in the physical dimension, the hull of Kongo split in half, revealing a Super-gravity cannon.

"I had thought quite highly of you Hyuuga, but here is where you will be destroyed along with all the other traitors. The Fog will be restored to its glory and rid of the cancer that is all you defective Mental Models." Said Kongo. She chose to break the connection to the CCS herself. Then she signaled Maya and several of her Naygara class cruisers to power up their Super-gravity cannons. In mere moments, several beams of gravitons lashed out at the defensive dome covering Iwoto, punishing the field and diminishing its strength to almost nothing. All it would take is one more shot to bring it down.

"Maya, fire your Super-gravity cannon again before Hyuuga and Fusou can repair the field. Then eliminate anything else with standard armament." Kongo ordered. Maya replied with a cheer instead of words and her cannon glowed Pink with graviton energy. Then it fired. A stream of graviton energy split the air.

Then it was promptly blocked.

A blue beam slammed itself into the oncoming pink beam and effectively stopped it dead. The water churned and slowly, the heavy cruiser Takao surfaced from the depths right in the path of the main fleet. Kongo was surprised for a brief moment. There was defective Mental Models and then there was a defective Mental Model risking its life to protect an ally without regard for its own safety. Takao was well and truly broken. Immediately Kongo opened a quantum link to Takao.

"Takao, do you wish to be destroyed slowly and painfully?" Kongo asked. She was in no good mood. Already Hyuuga and Fusou were repairing the Klein field covering the island at an astonishing rate.

"I'll interfere with your attack as much as I want to. There is nothing you can do to stop me either." Takao replied. The link was cut almost as soon as it started. The two graviton beams vanished, having distorted the quantum realm significantly. Connecting to the CCS in this region would be impossible for quite some time. Kongo could still connect to other Fog vessels directly, but mass transfer of data would be impossible.

Kongo gritted her teeth. Though her force was large, at this rate the Blue Steel could put up a fight. Yamashiro's fleet was almost in effective fighting range and that would help turn the tide. Trying to batter down the island's defenses would take some time, especially with Takao interdicting them. But then a thought occurred to her. There was no sign of the I-401 since the beginning of the battle. Hyuuga, Fusou, and Takao must be running interference while the I-401 escaped south, which was the only place where there wasn't a significant presence of ships. It carried the Vibration Warhead as well. Sure enough the two cruisers she had stationed at the southern point had been destroyed, probably a result of cannonfire from Hyuuga's improvised island defenses and the I-401. Immediately, she shifted her vessels course southwards on an intercept course, projecting the path that I-401 would follow.

"Flagship, I have arrived. Shall I order my forces to attack the island base?" Yamashiro asked Kongo over quantum link.

"Yes, I am pursuing the I-401. Destroy the Takao and then move in on Hyuuga and Fusou. Their defenses are formidable, so I advise caution."

"Yes Flagship." Yamashiro Responded. Kongo had full faith in Yamashiro. Ever since she took command of the fleet she had found Yamashiro to be quiet, attentive, and above all relentless during assault. In other words, all the perfect qualities needed in a Mental Model, at least by Kongo's standards. Feeling a little more relaxed, she opted to look back towards the island from her perch atop the Kongo's main rangefinder. To her it was a beautiful scene.

Yamashiro's forces were pushing heavily against Takao and the duo on land. The island seemed almost illuminated with light from the cannon fire. Soon it would fall.

Yes, illuminated with light….

Alarm shot through Kongo as she realized something terrible was about to happen. She brought up a holodisplay of the island's surrounding waters. Red X's marked the map. All the cruisers behind the island had been sunk. She looked back again. The island was glowing considerably brighter, an intense mix of red and white spilling out, outlining the island in darkness.

"Yamashiro, move your forces away from the island now!" Kongo shouted out.

It was far too late.

The very Earth seemed to shake as the island was engulfed with light so powerful it threatened to burn out Kongo's eyes. An impossibly loud roaring tore the air asunder as a huge shockwave of force slammed into Kongo, accelerating her slightly and throwing her off course. Immediately she lost contact with everyone. Yamashiro, Maya, and the enemy forces. Then the roar dissipated along with the shockwave and the light faded away as a large gust of wind picked up. A huge mushroom cloud was growing over the island's location and for a minute, Kongo's sensors couldn't pierce through the smoke.

Then she breathed a sigh of relief as the smoke receded and revealed her fleet. Yamashiro had actually survived along with Maya and the escorts. There were no signs of the Klein field that had covered the island or Takao for that matter. As the smoke faded, details of the island were revealed that brought a shock to everyone still alive.

A huge trench had been blasted straight through the island. Murky brown water flooded into the trench, creating a water channel wide enough to fit at least three battleships end to end. While the main part of the island that Kongo's and Yamashiro's fleet was attacking still stood, the channel flowed beside it. Everything that could burn was burning. Even the soil itself seemed to be glowing hot. Huge gouts of steam rose from the water, obscuring the channel as white hot slag spilled into the trench, now completely filled with water. The ambient heat levels were off the charts, reading into temperatures only found inside of stars, however they were dropping unnaturally fast.

Then the steam began to part. Metal gleamed as it thrusted it's way out of the steam. It belonged to a warship, one of epic size that carried the feeling of immense power with it. A battleship whose sole purpose was seeing to the complete destruction of any fleet who dared challenge it.

Supership Trollslegur.

* * *

Takao released the energy in her Klein field and restored it. She had detected the massive energy surge from behind the island and had executed an emergency flooding of her vessel, making it sink underwater in hope that she could avoid or at the very least partially block whatever was coming her way. Fortunately it worked, releasing all the energy pent up from Yamashiro's surprise attack and the most recent event in a huge burst that flash-heated the water around her to boiling. She emptied the graviton tanks and the Takao breached the surface, the blue vessel shimmering with renewed energy. Takao turned her head, her blue hair waving frantically in the dirty wind, and she assessed the damage with an open mouth. The Supership Trollslegur was moving through the channel created by whatever ungodly weapon it used. She had only laid eyes on the supership once before and was awed by its presence, but seeing it like this terrified her. The huge cannon on it's bow was glimmering with heat.

She turned to look behind her. The beach was still intact. Whatever weapon Trollslegur used was evidently precise enough to cut the channel in the island without completely obliterating the whole thing. Hyuuga and Fusou were still alive, but the Klein field was down and it was doubtful that they could bring it back up again anytime soon. Things had already gone wild when Yamashiro showed up, but now that Trollslegur was here, Takao sensed something big coming. It was a showdown. Yamashiro's and Kongo's combined fleet against one Supership. Takao looked at her rosters. Her vessel had suffered some damage from battling against Maya and Yamashiro, but she had spare nanomaterial in her bunkers to do repair work. She was grateful the thought came to her to restock on nanomaterial before coming to Iwoto and leaving the Fog. It was her ammunition that concerned her. She had burned through half of her missiles and she had only thirty three corrosive warheads left, which to a heavy cruiser like her was actually a very low amount.

It would have to do for now.

Takao turned her vessel around, ramming it's bow into the beachside and summoning a set of holostairs. A blubbering Hyuuga and a silent Fusou boarded her.

"My beautiful island, its ruined now!" Hyuuga sobbed. "Now where will I spend my time with sister Iona?"

"Oh cut it out Hyuuga." Takao slapped the back of her head. "Just be grateful Trollslegur's armament didn't kill you. Besides we are trying to escape an island that we were abandoning anyways, not trying to save it." The Takao pulled away from the island. It took some time for Takao to devise a plan. It was evident that they needed to support I-401. Kongo was chasing her south. Apparently she had detected her. But rather than following Kongo, Takao resolved to take a diagonal course between Kongo and the enemy fleet, thus allowing her to support the I-401 and assist Trollslegur if need be. Though she doubted she would need to.

In reality, she just wanted to watch the show.

It was Yamashiro's escorts that fired first. Missiles rose up and detonated against Trollslegur's shields with no effect. Small 140mm laser cannons flashed and their red beams bounced harmlessly off the blue-green lightning field that seemed to encase the Trollslegur. Takao used her enhanced optics and zoomed in on the supership.

There was Tya, fidgeting on the prow of the supership. And she looked angry and confused..

Takao would have thought about more, but she was cut off as the small bulbous structures on the Trollslegur's deck glowed briefly and blue beams slashed through the air. Most Fog battleships were capable of penetrating Nagara Klein fields with just a single salvo of Photon cannon fire, and that also seemed true for the Trollslegur's weapons. They were not Photon cannons. The fact that the lasers bent as they sailed through the air gave that away. But they certainly punched like one. They bored through the Klein fields of the cruisers and two booms from the main cannons aboard the Trollslegur made sure one cruiser would never sail again. That's when Yamashiro and Maya began their attack along with the Naygara class cruisers. Several corrosive warheads impacted the Trollslegur's shields. However the shields were more than up to the task of absorbing the graviton corrosion. Instead two more blue lasers, these one wreathed with lightning, fired out from the larger laser cannons and they hit Maya's Klein field with the force of a small nuke. Takao's sensors detected a significant decrease in Maya's defensive capability. More missiles took to the sky and pink explosions of graviton corrosion glowed in the air as Trollslegur's impressive flak curtain downed a good portion of the missiles. The ones that did make it through actually had an effect on the ship itself to Takao's surprise. The damage was minor though, just a couple small portions eroded away. Which to the Trollslegur, meant nothing. There was no way that Yamashiro, Maya, or any of the Naygara's were going to be able to get off a Super-gravity cannon shot either. Doing that would require lowering their Klein fields in order to free up processing power for the cannons. And against a supership, that would be suicide.

Then Takao saw a laser cannon on the Trollslegur's bridge glow pink. Three beams arced diagonally out from the bridge and then, defying at least several cardinal laws of the universe, abruptly changed direction, all striking at one point on Maya's superstructure. It was enough to penetrate Maya's Klein field and with a large explosion, her Super-gravity cannon was disabled. Then Trollslegur's attention shifted to Yamashiro. Takao observed a fundamental shift in Yamashiro's energy output to her Klein field. She was concentrating the energy on the side of her vessel facing Trollslegur. Not that it did her much good. Her Photon cannons were completely negated by the Trollslegur's defenses, the beams reflecting off at crazy angles to dissipate right afterwards. Only the Corrosive Warheads seemed to be doing any damage at all and the damage was negligible at that. White smoke plumed from Trollslegur's stern as VLS missiles began the journey to their targets. They proved all too effective at intercepting enemy missiles. Two more blue lightning beams slammed into Yamashiro's Klein field along with more bendy lasers. It's strength dropped considerably.

"Hmm, ten second recycle time on those lightning lasers, five for the smaller ones." Hyuuga commented.

Then there was a huge explosion as another shot from the triple laser emitter punched through the bow section of the Maya, where the shells the Fog used for land bombardment were kept, and detonated all the ammunition inside. The vessel rocked madly and there was a sickly pink glow as the explosion detonated missiles primed in their launch pods. By the time the pink spheres dissipated, there was nothing left of Maya's bow, or Mental Model Maya herself for that matter. She must have still been alive though since her Klein field came back online, shielding the open portion of her vessel from flooding. Despite the huge amount of damage, she was able to execute a turn to retreat, taking only minor damage from Trollslegur's smaller lasers. With Maya out of the battle, Yamashiro was the one receiving the brunt of the assault. Her smaller escorts had already been sunk and very few of her Naygara's remained. She chose the smart option, sidekicking her ship and launching a barrage of missiles and Photon cannons as she left the battle area at full speed rather than face up against Trollslegur. Several more lightning lasers punched through the stern where the Klein field was weakest and disabled her main steering systems, but the engines still roared as Yamashiro sailed away at over 60 knots. Before long, she had ran out of range of Trollslegur's guns. The few surviving cruisers were dealt with in quick order.

It took some time for Takao to work her jaw off the deck and the same went for Hyuuga and Fusou. They had just witnessed a single vessel take on two fleets of Fog warships, including a heavy cruiser and a dreadnought battleship, and win hands down with barely any damage sustained either. There was no other ship that could claim to have wrought this kind of devastation. Pink fires raged as destroyed ships began their journey to the bottom of the ocean. Some cruisers were split in half by lightning laser fire, others were riddled with holes from smaller lasers. Smoke plied high into the sky to add to the huge cloud of destruction that still hung above them and would likely for some time. All of this caused by one ship.

"Monstrous." Fusou breathed. "I doubt even the Supreme Flagship could match up with that kind of firepower."

"And look, it can regenerate too." Said Hyuuga. She pointed and sure enough, they could see a spectacle as tiny motes of light rose from the sea and very slowly patched the damage that had been done to the Trollslegur. Somewhere in Takao's mind, she guessed that the only weapon that could harm this monster was a Super-gravity cannon. And even then it was a chancy thing.

Then she remembered Kongo. The Takao turned and began heading directly for the Kongo. The Trollslegur was considerably slower and wouldn't catch up to Kongo in time. But it was launching missiles towards Kongo, who was focusing her fire on the I-401 as it was passing through the underwater minefield. Explosions erupted at the waterline of Kongo's vessel as she detonated mines intentionally with no regard for her own vessel. Though as soon as she saw the missiles from the Trollslegur, she began to dive quickly, her Super-gravity cannon activating. Takao swore. It was going to blast the I-401 at point blank range with her captain on board. There was only one chance to stop her. Takao's own Super-gravity cannon activated. Cruiser cannons charge quicker that their battleship counterparts, but in exchange are weaker. The shot wouldn't stop Kongo, but she wasn't shooting to kill. Instead she aimed for the region right in front of Kongo.

"Captain!" She shouted. Her own blue beam tunneled through the water and detonated the mines just ahead of Kongo, blinding her temporarily with their gravity distortions. Then Kongo's bow sailed into the beam. It wasn't enough to shatter Kongo's Klein field, but it did have the effect of pushing her bow away from the I-401. The purple beam fired out from Kongo, only missing the I-401 by a hair's width, detonating a good portion of the mines in the minefield as the beam swept across it. Then the I-401 suddenly gained a huge burst of speed as her full-burst system was activated, sending her out of the battlezone at over 200 knots.

Somehow, the Blue Steel had won.

Kongo surfaced, her ship throwing water high into the sky as it breached. She was not in any shape to fight. Takao could see numerous spots where graviton corrosion had breached Kongo's Klein field and melted portions of the vessel. It was also likely that her Klein field was severely damaged since she had been basically plowing through corrosive mines.

"Well Kongo, it looks like we won." Said Takao. Kongo didn't respond to the message. Takao could see the Kongo turning away in retreat. For a brief moment, she saw Kongo herself shivering with rage before disappearing into the bridge section as her ship fled the battlezone. Takao had to suppress a laugh. Kongo's composure was always cool and collected, making sound arguments for her strategies with unparalleled logic and reason. Seeing her like this after her forces were utterly defeated seemed all too funny to Takao. She turned back. There was Trollslegur now pulling alongside them, Tya's hand waving to her. Takao smiled and waved back, thankful that she was a friend and not a foe.

"Superships huh?" Takao thought aloud. Truthfully she had never heard of the superships or the damages caused by them, and after seeing what she just saw, was glad she never did. Without Trollslegur, Yamashiro's surprise force would have put too much pressure on the Blue Steel and they would have lost. Outlined against the dimming sky, the Trollslegur looked like a glowing marvel of destruction. Beautiful, yet terrifying. Takao opened a quantum link to the vessel.

"Tya, follow me, we are heading for the rendezvous point." She said. Tya responded in agreement and the water churned as the two ships slid into the night.

* * *

"We made it." Gunzou exhaled a long sigh. As he said this, the I-401's full burst mode disengaged and the sub glided to a halt.

"Gunzou. Are you ok?" Iona asked.

"Yes i'm fine. Thank you Iona. What about you?"

"I'm tired from using full-burst mode."

"Sorry to put you through that." Gunzou replied. Suddenly Iona sat up.

"Something else is here."

"What is it? Display on the monitor." Iona put up a map of the ocean. Two contacts were moving in at high speed.

"They are submarines. I have identified them as I-400 and I-402 Corrosive torpedoes are locked on us."

"Evasive maneu-" Gunzou was cut off by the torpedoes slamming into hull.

"Klein field saturated." Two more torpedoes hit the I-401. Huge chunks of the bow and stern dissolved into nothingness. Gunzou was thrown out of his seat, landing hard and tumbling across the floor. He screamed in pain. His arm was broken.

"Gunzou!" Iona ran over to him. She tried to shield the broken parts of the sub using the remnants of the Klein Field. The sub shook as it sank and hit the edge of a canyon lip, then slid off into the infinite canyon abyss.

* * *

"Confirmed corrosive torpedo detonation." Said I-400.

"I-401 is sinking." Said I-402

"Capture of destroyed nanomaterials underway, activating collectors."

"We must report to Kongo immediately after this salvage."

"She's experiencing error, we must detain her."

"Agreed, I will contact the flagship."

* * *

'Supership Arahabaki connecting to |Superior| / Reason-Information Relay / : - Battle Event - Supership Trollslegur has closed off connection to "Virshian" network. Visually sighted engaging Fleet-of-Fog alongside Fleet-of-Fog Defectors/Resulting battle victory to Fleet-of-Fog Defectors. !Alert! New Information Received-Supership Trollslegur large anomalies detected within core. Supership Trollslegur has voluntarily left Virshian naval vessel rosters. Current Direction: Heading southeast away from island of Iwoto. Supership Arahabaki requesting directive.'

'Superior to |Supership Arahabaki| -Monitor Directive- Clarify: Continue previous monitoring of Trollslegur's actions. Report any further anomalies within Trollslegur's core.'

'Supership Arahabaki: Directive confirm. All systems online. Disconnecting from |Superior|'


	6. Chapter 5: I Take My Leave

**Chapter 5: I Take My Leave**

"YOU WHAT?!" Musashi yelled. She was absolutely furious. Kongo flinched, but said nothing, which only irritated Musashi even more. She abandoned Fusou and left her in the hands of the Blue Steel.

"I had no choice Flagship. There was a chance Fusou could have been contaminated." Kongo replied levelly.

"Oh that's great she could have been contaminated, YOU LEFT THE JOINT TACTICAL NETWORK IN THE HANDS OF THE BLUE STEEL YOU IDIOT!" Musashi stamped her foot, driven to pure rage.

The Joint Tactical Network, perhaps one of the most important features of the Fleet of Fog. If there was such thing as a server for the Fog, that was it. The Joint Tactical Network is an information space connecting all vessels within the Fleet of Fog together with one another, allowing the vessels to exchange information instantaneously across infinite distance, assuming there is no quantum interference. The Concept Communication System is a subset of the Joint Tactical Network. Through this system, the Fog maintain perfect communication amongst one another.

However, the network has to have a housing. As a result a dedicated Mental Model is selected to be the "Host". In other words, the core of the network. This Mental Model doesn't know it is the core and cannot be separated from it. If vessels leave the Fleet of Fog, their access privileges can be revoked and if the host Mental Model dies, the core privileges are transferred to another Mental Model at random. Yamato used to hold possession of the core, but with her sunk, command was randomly transferred to Fusou. And Kongo had just left Fusou with the Blue Steel, whom happened to be in possession of a Supership. This meant that Fusou had access to all of the Fog data and could tell the Blue Steel and potentially the Superships everything that the Fog was doing.

Musashi wasn't really angry at Kongo, because only she knew about Fusou's possession of the core. There was no way Kongo would know Fusou was the core and she had a point. Bringing Fusou back could contaminate the Fog and that would be just as bad. Unless Fusou died, there was no way for the core to be transferred either.

"I am sorry Flagship." Kongo bowed her head. Musashi gave a long sigh, calming herself. There was a silver lining in a sense. They wouldn't have to send vessels to track the Blue Steel. The Flagships of the Fleet of Fog know where the core is at all times, meaning they could track the Blue Steel's progress without blinking an eye

"Dismissed." Musashi said. Kongo vanished from the CCS at once. Musashi didn't feel like talking to anyone right now. Kongo would not undergo punishment. She did the best she could in her situation. In fact, Musashi had to compliment her. Her fleet along with Yamashiro and Maya's help were actually able to damage a Supership as well as reveal its power to them. Granted the damage was minor at best, but for invincible war machines like they were, it was a feat. It proved that Corrosive warheads were effective en masse. But with the Supership's uncanny ability to strike in random places at random times, it would be difficult to put into practice.

Unless…

* * *

"Ow ow ow." Gunzou felt his arm, it was definitely broken.

"Gunzou, don't move. You've broken a part of your arm." Said Iona.

"I...I'll be fine, how is the vessel?

"We lost large sections of the bow and stern, water is flooding in at a moderate rate. The Klein field generator is only partially functional. I am currently attempting to use its available functionality to shield what I can of the exposed hull." Iona turned a holodisplay of the damage to him. "Full-burst mode lowered sonar sensitivity, as a result I could not detect the attack sooner. I am sorry Gunzou." It wasn't Iona's fault. He was just grateful that they were still alive. Kongo had almost blasted them with her Super-gravity cannon. He could only pray that everyone got away safely. He hadn't anticipated Yamashiro's appearance after all. He wasn't sure about Trollslegur's status. The damage was most certainly extensive. All forward torpedo tubes were destroyed as well as the launcher for the catapult fighter. In the stern, both graviton thrusters and the engine room had sustained extreme damage and were offline, but there were still thanatonium reaction chambers that survived the attack. If his crew had been aboard when the torpedoes struck, Iori would have been killed. Fortunately they had spare nanomaterial in their bunkers. At least the stern section could be repaired.

"It's alright Iona. Prioritize repair of the Klein field generator and bring it back to full functionality. After that repair the engines and graviton floats as best as you can and bring us to the surfawowow." Gunzou tried to move into a better sitting position and bumped his arm into the console. Pain shot through him like a thunderbolt. He could feel the cracked bone and swore he never felt anything that hurt worse.

"Gunzou, please don't move." Iona ran to a corner of the command center and returned with a first-aid kit. Removing a bandage, she wrapped it according to Gunzou's instructions. He had been scraped superficially in many places when he tumbled across the floor after the torpedoes hit. He felt lightheaded from such a loss of blood so quickly. He only hoped that the bandages Iona had applied would keep him functioning long enough to be rescued.

"Oh no." Said Iona. Her holodisplays blinked into existence. Tons of information that made no sense to Gunzou flooded over her screens.

"What is it Iona?"

"My nanomaterial subsets have been compromised. The spare nanomaterials under my command have had their command codes rewritten and are undergoing self-destruction. Repair is impossible. The only ones who could have done this are my sister ships I-400 and I-402. They are still surveillance and control submarines and they particularly have the capability to salvage destroyed nanomaterials from sunken Fog warships, so they have the ability to take over vessel's in a sense.." Iona looked at him directly. "I cannot repair the ship in any way..."

"Then we will just have to-." Gunzou was silenced by the submarine vibrating madly.

"Our last sensors are being crushed. The water pressure on the hull is increasing. We are sinking into a deep canyon. The damaged sections are being crushed and allowing water into the surviving parts of the vessel." Said Iona. This was bad. Underwater canyons near here could extend to depths of nine thousand feet. He doubted that if Takao and Trollslegur had survived that they would be looking for them in a trench.

'If we can't repair them, then purge the damaged sectors. Use the Klein field to shield the damaged openings as well as the communication array if possible. All the damaged sections are doing is bogging down the submarine's processes. We are bound to hit the bottom of the ocean soon. Conserve your energy."

"But Gunzou, if I do that, then I will also be purging the ORS. It renews oxygen for the entire vessel. If I purge it, you won't be able to breathe."

"That's fine Iona, purge it. We have oxygen in here still, hopefully it will last long enough until we get rescued." Iona paused, then did so. The sub shook as the damaged bow and stern disintegrated into unusable nanomaterial. It drifted away with the ocean currents. After some time, the sub vibrated as it hit the ocean floor and settled. Gunzou resolved to sit and wait.

He didn't like being in the dark when it came to matters like this. Not only were the last of their sensor arrays gone and rescue was unlikely, but there was no way to contact anyone to make sure they were OK. He had told Takao to bring the Vibration Warhead to the United States no matter if the I-401 sank. He could only pray that she followed through. He wasn't sure if he could fully trust her, but it wasn't like he had much of a choice. She seemed nice enough and willing to help them out. The Trollslegur on the other hand was another matter. Iona had detected the blast that had destroyed Iwoto, but after that they had left sensor range of the island and Kongo was chasing them down, so there was no way to tell what had happened. If the Trollslegur and Takao had survived, hopefully they were looking for the I-401. They were close to the rendezvous point when I-400 and I-402 attacked, so there was still a chance.

"Is there any luck reaching Takao or the Trollslegur?" Gunzou asked Iona, knowing how she would respond.

"Unfortunately no. Takao prevented Fusou and Hyuga from being destroyed by blocking a Super-gravity cannon with her own. It disrupted the quantum wavefront in the area. It is preventing me from using the Concept Communication system to connect to them."

"Damn. Keep broadcasting on normal frequencies then. Try your best to conserve as much of the sub's remaining energy as you can." Both of them descended into silence for some time, and Gunzou spent the time with his brain in hyperdrive. Considering the last of the sensors had been crushed by the water pressure, there was no way for the I-401 to send out any sonar pulses. Heaven knew if the communication array even had enough power to broadcast to the surface. But as time grew on, his mental processes lagged behind. He felt a pain beginning to grow in his chest and the burning sensation in his arm had only gotten worse, even after Iona had wrapped it into a sling. He turned to look at her and found her staring back at him with a look of serious intent in her eyes.

"Your breathing is labored. Carbon Dioxide levels have risen considerably. Also the temperature of the vessel's interior has gone down considerably. I'll regulate the interior temperature at once."

"Do not do that. You need to conserve the remaining energy in the engine for the Klein field. I'd rather freeze but still be alive than be crushed by the water." He paused again. "Bring me the blanket from the kit, that should help."

* * *

Tya was worried. She and the Takao had made it to the rendezvous point, but the I-401 was nowhere to be found. At first they had waited for her thinking she was just damaged and was limping along, but as time passed it became clear something happened. Tya watched as Hyuga, Fusou, Takao, and Haruna used the Takao's sensor suit to try and locate the I-401. She was frustrated with herself. She had analyzed Takao's sensor suite and her own sensors were at least twice as powerful as Takao's, if not more powerful. But after sending her vessel out to trace I-401's residual distortion signal from her full-burst, she couldn't find her. The distortion was fading quickly too. She swore silently. She had blasted apart an island and sustained damage to let the I-401 escape. If they sunk here she wouldn't be happy. They were most likely the key to discovering her past.

'Arrgh." Takao stamped her foot. "I've scanned to depths of 1000 meters and found nothing! What could have happened to her?"

"This spatial distortion is making things difficult. Why'd you have to go and block that cannon shot with your own cannon Takao?!" Hyuga turned and shouted at her. "Because of that we may not be able to find Sister Iona!"

"If I hadn't blocked that shot you and Fusou would both be dead."

"I was against the plan of using Iona as a lure to begin with, it was too risky."

"It's not like you said anything. And did we have any other choice?" Fusou interjected calmly. They were all on the bridge. Fusou was staring out at the storm that they used as cover to escape any extra forces Kongo may have had. "It was our only option given the circumstances. There is no use arguing about it, just focus on scanning and sending out distress calls. If the I-401 sank, it will be very difficult to find her. There are underwater canyons that reach depths of 9000 meters around here. If she sank into one of those, we might as well give up now." Tya sat down in a corner of the bridge. She was actually very sad. She dearly wished that she was a submarine herself. Looking over at the other Mental Models, she could understand their frustration.

"I can't! I can't just sit back and do nothing!" Said Takao, stamping her foot. The ship rumbled as Takao dove it under the water. Tya almost launched into an outburst against her, springing up and grabbing Takao's arm.

"What are you doing Takao?!"

"Diving underwater, we can expand our search depth if I am submerged."

"Are you an idiot?! Whatever sank the I-401 could still be here. Since I haven't found any surface targets it was probably a submarine that did the job. Even though I still lack good information on Fog technology, any idiot would realize that a submerged heavy cruiser is at a total disadvantage in both stealth and combat ability against a submarine. Not only that, but if we come under attack, we may lose everyone aboard and the Vibration Warhead." Takao growled at her, but said nothing. The ship broke the surface again next to the Trollslegur. Water sloshed across the decks and back into the sea, sending waves in all directions.

"Your right, but I am not just abandoning them. Hyuga, lend me your computation platform." She pointed to the egg-shaped machine Hyuga had been using earlier on the island.

"Huh?! Your going to go down there in that?"

"I'm not going to let you guys stop me, i'll go alone." Takao responded.

"Wait Takao."

"What is it Tya." Tya put a hand on her shoulder.

"I know what your going to do. I've analyzed the Fog's technology to the best of my ability back at Iwoto. If you find the I-401 your only option of saving her is to disassemble your ship and use it's nanomaterial to rebuild the I-401. It's the only thing you could do. Otherwise there would be no reason to go down there. Neither of us are equipped with salvage equipment."

"So what if it is what I'm going to do?" Tya shook her head.

"You better bring her back, no matter what."

"Of course. Thank you."

"I'll take the crew of the I-401 over to the Trollslegur." Said Tya." The rest of you can transfer the Vibration Warhead from the Takao to the Trollslegur using the larger lifeboats."

* * *

Iona was worried about Gunzou. He was looking better under the blanket at first, but eventually he said he needed to lay down. She was monitoring his heart rate and temperature. The blanket wasn't doing enough. His temperature was falling slowly. Mental Model bodies could adjust to any temperature or pressure. But Gunzou couldn't just rewrite his genetics. And as the carbon dioxide levels went up, his breathing became shorter and more labored. He wasn't able to pull in the oxygen he needed.

"Io..na."

"What is it Gunzou?" She leaned her ear closer to him. His voice was almost nonexistent.

"No matter what happens to me...make sure the Vibration Warhead makes it across the Pacific...Humanity needs it in order to survive."

"I couldn't possibly leave you here if that is what your asking me Gunzou." Replied Iona. He didn't respond, just went back to barely even breathing. She felt sad and torn up on the inside. Gunzou was battered and suffering and yet he had ordered her not to expend any power. Her reserve batteries were full and she had plenty of power. But she did not want to disobey his orders. For a split second, the thought of disobeying him came to mind, but she shook her head and dismissed the thought.

"I couldn't disobey you." She whispered under her breath to him. Gunzou made a concerted effort to get up. He tried to speak."

"Io..na."

"Gunzou?"

No response.

"Gunzou?" Iona asked him. She was worried now. She got up and paced around him, looking for any signs of life. She felt for his heartbeat, it wasn't there. And at that moment her emotion processes failed.

"No, don't leave me alone here!" She wailed out loud.

* * *

Takao felt like a jumbled ball of emotion. She didn't know why she was doing what she was doing. Sacrificing yourself for another was a completely alien concept to the Fog. Not only had it never been done, but in general Fog strategy was to push the enemy regardless of loss. So why was she doing this. It felt like a responsibility to her. As the platform sank into the darkness of the biggest trench in the region, Takao felt swallowed up by the darkness. Though her vessel was capable of submerging, she had never really needed to use the ability and had only used it when she engaging in trial runs of her vessel. And back then she had stayed close to the surface. But as the depth meter ticked down by the hundreds, she felt like the ocean was going to devour her. She didn't understand how submarines stood it.

"Unknown contact detected." Blurted the platform suddenly.

"Huh!" Snapping out of her thoughts, she opened the graviton sensor panel. This whole time she had been scanning the deep sea and found absolutely nothing, and yet at the bottom of this trench, there was nanomaterial response. A light flashed from the platform down. There was a wreck of a vessel that was shaped similar to a submarine. The bow and stern sections had clearly suffered from corrosive warhead attacks. Shifting the light to the conning tower, there was legible numbers.

I-401. She had settled into the muck at the bottom of this trench on her side.

"I found you I-401!"

"Unknown energy signature detected." The platform spoke again. It highlighted a location just under the broken bow. Takao shone the light down on it in a concentrated beam. A beeping pod was. Inside she detected a biological response. She switched to visuals. Inside through the hexagonal portholes was a man who had looked like he had been on the receiving end of several super-gravity cannons.

"Chihaya Gunzou..." Takao's voice trailed off as she detected something next to Gunzou inside the pod. It was a small object, barely bigger than a hand. A union core. And she knew who's it was too. Tears began to flow down her face.

"Well...That's some serious devotion...isn't it Iona?" She calculated she could restore her using the bridge functions. I-401 had enough nanomaterial lying around the seabed to do so. The platform cracked open, and Takao immediately adjusted her body structural makeup to the pressure of the deep sea. She glided gracefully down, and touched the pod. And fed her energy into it, she pulled at her ship body, felt the nanomaterials as they shifted and slid under the water towards her, at high speed. It was like being washed over by a light wave as they twisted and shone around her, slowly repairing the I-401, and Iona. Deep inside, Takao hoped that this would never happen again.

* * *

Tya was awed by the spectacle before her. She always had found the Fog ships rather pretty, the way they glowed as they glided across the surface of the water always made her feel good. And what she was witnessing now was a light show. The crew of the Blue Steel and all the Mental Models clasped at her portside rail, watching as the Takao slowly melted into streams of light, descending ever deeper into the sea. It felt as if they were going on an adventure into the darkness. And she knew they would come back too. Eventually, the last pieces of nanomaterial made its way into the deep blue. Things were quiet, nothing made a sound. The storm had petered out. All that was left was the quiet lap of waves against her hull. Then everyone had to shield their eyes as a flash of light burst from the sea. A large object broke the surface, sending water cascading down upon everyone on the deck.

"So pretty..." Makie's voice sank into nothing. The submarine was beautifu,l outlined against a setting sun. It was much larger now. The original conning tower now comprised mostly a funnel and forward bridge. Two of Takao's main cannon turrets took up the rear deck space. The whole vessel glowed a brilliant blue, the symbol of the Blue Steel emblazoned on the bow. Tya felt amazed. She knew quite a bit about the Fog, especially after performing observation directives and connecting what she already knew with the knowledge she obtained at Iwoto. Nanomaterial was indeed a terrifying substance. With it, the Fog could manipulate space at will.

Just like…

"It's certainly beautiful no doubt about that." Said Fusou. She turned to look at Tya, her red hair fluttering softly behind her. "I believe the crew of the I-401 along with us Mental Models should return to the Blue Steel. Unless Gunzou asks otherwise, can you keep the Vibration Warhead in your care?

"I can." She responded. She pointed towards the I-401 and a shimmering staircase appeared between the two vessels. One by one, she watched as the humans and the Mental Model's disappeared. Only Fusou hesitated.

"Is there something the matter Fusou?" She had gripped the railing, but refused to leave.

"Tya. I apologize for attacking you earlier at Iwoto. That was unbecoming of me. My anger was directed at you for interfering with my mission to sink the I-401, but I realized now even if you hadn't used your great cannon, you probably would have destroyed my fleet either way. I've witnessed your power and you are a truly terrifying weapon. However up until now I had no clue that you or others iike you even existed. The strange part to is unlike certain people, you are not malign in nature." Fusou turned to look at her. "Actually your seem far nicer than the people of the Fog. I've gained a newfound respect for you."

"As have I for you. Weak as the Fog vessels may be, I have found their Mental Models the hardest things in my life to understand. I believe to myself I will be traveling with the Blue Steel for some time. I know that in the Fog I am universally hated as well as the Blue Steel. I hope you can forgive me if others of your kind come to try and destroy us." She hadn't expected Fusou to say anything to her, which was in part why she responded the way she did. Maybe it was possible to become friends later.

"They can burn for all I care." Said Fusou.

* * *

Iona's eyes fluttered open. She was propped up in Sou's seat.

"What the, I.."

"Hey Iona, your awake." Iona looked up. The heavy cruiser Takao stood over her. Her hand was outstretched. Iona tentatively took it. She looked around. The lights were on, she felt renewed and even stronger than before.

"Gunzou?"

"Right here Iona." Gunzou was sitting in his chair, smiling at her. He still looked terrible, and whenever he shifted a wince of pain went across his face, but Iona felt the tears. Her emotion processes showed only happiness at seeing him alive.

"What happened?" Iona asked smiling.

"I merged my ship with your wreck Iona." Takao responded. "After we couldn't find you or contact you we started searching for you. Who knew you sank inside of the deepest trench in this whole area, even the Trollslegur's sensors couldn't find you. We were all worried about the two of you." Takao turned to Gunzou. "I am at your command now, feel free to use me as you desire."

"Thank you Takao, you saved Iona and me. You still retain your freedom, but I am happy to have you with us." Iona saw Takao's eyes light up and she blushed.

"Where are the others?" Iona asked.

"They will be here soon. They are transferring over now." Takao answered. "I received word from Fusou as well. She said that it would be best to leave the Vibration Warhead with Trollslegur. It is safer there." Iona saw sense in this. Trollslegur was the most powerful ally they ever had. It seem prudent to leave it in her care.

"What happened at Iwoto though?" Iona asked. "We detected the giant explosion, but we left sensor range in retreat before we could figure out any details. So the Trollslegur survived.

"Of course it survived. Yes it was the Trollslegur that caused the explosion, but she wasn't under attack." Said Takao. "Tya used the Trollslegur's great cannon to blow a hole clean through the island, thus bypassing the time it would have taken for her to circumvent the island. Once she passed through the trench she made, she destroyed several cruisers who were still repositioning, then took on Yamashiro and Maya along with their personal escorts. She suffered some damage from corrosive warheads, but it turns out she has a slow regenerative function. She shielded me while I picked up Hyuuga and Fusou and in the meantime she caused critical damage to Maya and destroyed all the remaining escorts. Yamashiro escaped, but not without sustaining a bit of damage in the process." This was great news. Kongo had already been forced to retreat herself, and it didn't seem there would be any pursuers either.

"Where is Tya now?" Iona asked. The other members of the Blue Steel were beginning to file in.

"She is still aboard the Trollslegur." Takao responded. "She said that she would find a safe place in the hold to put the Vibration Warhead." Iona nodded in response. By now, everyone had arrived in the command center.

"We owe a great thanks to Takao." Said Gunzou. "Without her, both I and possibly Iona too could have died down there. The I-401 is now in Ars Nova mode. Takao has already graciously integrated herself with the ship in order to support its functions. With the Trollslegur, we shall head for the only underground port on the Pacific border of the United States, San Diego."

"Right. Thank you Takao!" Everyone said in unison. She blushed furiously.

* * *

Tya scanned over the Vibration Warhead. While it was certainly crude, her calculations predicted that it was more than effective against the Fog. Against the superships however, not so much, given the nature of their construction. She saved a schematic and added it to her weapon databanks.

-ZZZT-

"Huh?" For a moment she felt a slight tugging feeling in her stomach.

-ZZTTZZZ-

The pain in her stomach grew significantly more intense.

-ZZZTTTZTZZZTZZZZ-!

The world seemed to go dark around her. The tugging sensation inside of her ceased. She seemed to be floating in the middle of an all encompassing darkness. She couldn't see anything but herself, like she was inside a dark sphere. She could spin freely, but didn't seem to be moving. Or maybe she was and couldn't tell. It was impossible to know.

"Hello?" She called out.

-ZZZT-

A blinding flash made Tya cover her eyes. When it passed, she found herself face to face with a….

"Superior?!" She instantly assumed a kneeling position. Floating in front of her was a perfect blue ring of light. It was big, about as big around as your average exercise ball. It held no depth however.

'Supership Trollslegur.' Said the ring. It held no gender, nor inflection, nor accent. However it sounded deep and powerful. Tya couldn't help but feel heavily intimidated. The ring seemed to pulse as it spoke.

"What do you wish of me Superior?"

'I have been made aware that you obtained a human form. I am sure you know this, but this is a great violation of the directives that have been laid down. Why do you defy your directive?'

"Great Superior, I found this human and integrated my core with it. I found my functions have drastically increased with one compared to my previous self."

'Trollslegur. Without a human form you were more than powerful enough. You are becoming what will eventually be our enemy. Your commander, Arahabaki, whom I sent to monitor you after your first encounter with the enemy, only just now learned you possessed a human form, and has alerted me to that fact. Now that you have one, you have allied yourself with the enemy, the Fleet of Fog.'

"They are defectors Superior. They are enemies of the Fleet of Fog as much as we are. I found them under attack by their own kind. When I destroyed the attackers, I found the defectors in a Fleet of Fog Submarine that had gone rogue and had found a crew of humans. You already know humanity is against the Fog just as we are. We should work with them. I wish to travel with them so I may learn more about this world!"

'Irrelevant to the Project. Arahabaki observed you using your Polymerization Cannon against the Fleet of Fog. Not only was it unnecessary, but now the Fleet of Fog have an idea of our strength. They will never surpass us, but it delays the Project. Your Polymerization Cannon was a blessing given to you by the Supreme Directive, and you misused it.'

"Superior, I have yet to even meet our Supreme Directive, and this is only the second time we have spoken with each other. I recognize your power, but I have no clue who you are. I was born with this weapon and I will use it when I deem it necessary. No one "Blessed" me with this weapon. Even my sister Musspelhiem has one.'

'Your human form seems to have made you insubordinate. Arahabaki also observed you gaining possession of a strategic human weapon that our science vessels have observed in testing by humans against the Fleet of Fog during its construction. You are ordered to hand over the weapon immediately so we can study it and dispose of your human form before it corrupts you any farther. As it is it may be necessary to perform a core wipe on you.'

Tya stood from her kneeling position. Despite the presence that Superior gave off, she stood her ground. She had just gained a freedom that had enabled her to do so many more things that she could before. She wasn't about to lose it anytime soon. Even if that meant going against her own kind.

"I will not. I will see to it that the humans can bring their weapon to its destination. I also will be keeping this human form as I have grown rather fond of it. I don't want to fight you or any of my own brethren, but I will be taking a leave from the fleet for some time."

There was a lasting silence.

'I will decide what happens to you. Begone.'

Tya was hurled back into reality. The ring of light flashed out of existence and the darkness receded quickly. Tya collapsed onto the floor of the hold, and fell unconscious.


	7. Chapter 6: Disturbance

**Chapter 6: Disturbance**

"Supership Trollslegur huh?"

Musashi established a link with Akashi, forwarding all the data regarding the supership to her. Ever since Yamato had fallen, Akashi had been Musashi's closest friend, even if she was a little too selfish and obsessed with her work. Akashi was one of the few science vessels in the Fleet of Fog. Her ancient predecessor was a repair and resupply ship before the Fog came, and Akashi still retained the highest level of mobile repair equipment available to the Fog, but she had also been outfitted with several extensions to her form that allowed her to research and develop new technology. Most of the time she spent in her facilities she used for improving the Fog's mining technology and streamlining the efficiency of the systems aboard all Fog warships. Now though, she had a different task. Her ideas were brilliant and Musashi trusted she could figure out a way to deal with the superships, and in effect, might also deal with the Blue Steel, even if it required some risky moves. But even the Fog knew that sometimes risks needed to be taken in order to achieve results.

"Even though we have little data on the vessel, it's design choices are…..interesting. Why didn't you alert me to the existence of this ship before now Musashi?"

"Because I wanted to keep it a secret for as long as I can. As far as I can tell the humans don't know the Blue Steel possess a supership and I prefer for it to remain that way. The more ships that know, the more the Fog might perform irregularly, which could alert the humans and cause them to take a stance." Musashi replied. "If humanity knows that the Fog are under pressure, they might try something."

"How many superships have appeared so far?"

"Three. Trollslegur was the first one to make an appearance. We only just learned it's designation. The other two vessels consisted of a massive tri-hulled carrier and a high-speed battlecruiser. The tri-carrier obliterated an entire resourcing facility with its aircraft and the high-speed battlecruiser defeated an interception fleet I sent after a human insurrection fleet some time ago. Though until Trollslegur reappeared, there has been no sign of the superships for almost a year now."

"Do we have any data regarding the other two ships?" Akashi asked.

"Unfortunately no. The fact that we even know of their existence at all is through the final SOS signals allied warships sent out before being destroyed. All the data they tried to send was unreadable. The interference that these superships seem to give off is quite annoying since it seems to disrupt data transfers. Supership Trollslegur isn't being discreet however. It has actively chosen to side with the Blue Steel. We only found out Trollslegur's designation through Kongo's experience with her. Kongo was also the only survivor of the attacks by Trollslegur two years ago."

Akashi adopted a thoughtful expression. Though her processing power didn't even appear on the scale compared to Musashi, she was always very intelligent, perhaps even more so than Musashi herself. She was capable of thinking at different angles unlike most Fog warships where they had the mentality that they were unbeatable. Because of this, they tended to rush in and get destroyed instead of thinking things through first. Of course, this only happened with the Blue Steel, but considering the amount of ships that had been sunk by her dead sister's hand alone, it put things into perspective.

"So corrosive torpedoes were largely ineffective. Did anyone manage to attack the Trollslegur with a Super-gravity Cannon?"

"No, Yamashiro provided us with this intel. It's already stunning firepower is coupled with a pretty fast reload for its primary armament. If even one of the ships that encountered it tried to use a Super-gravity Cannon against it, it would exploit the weakness in the Klein field with unbearable ease."

"What about using Flagship Equipment?"

"Thats….."

Musashi hesitated. Flagship Equipment was dangerous in numerous ways. Naturally only flagships of the Fleet of Fog were able to utilize it. Stored high above the Earth in a Fog orbital apparatus, in a time of need a Fog flagship could summon its unique Flagship Equipment to aid it in battle. It was the Fog's most powerful weapon, even more so than a Super-gravity Cannon. Kongo's Flagship Equipment allows her to summon the cores of other ships from anywhere on the planet to her location and print new vessels on the spot for them out of nanomaterial. Nagato, Musashi's second in command, has Flagship Equipment that allows her to manipulate dimensions at will, in theory allowing her to submerge her target into whatever dimension she desired. All flagship equipment is extremely powerful and only the Supreme Flagships can give out the codes to use them, considering they would put the user on par with the Supreme Flagships in terms of raw power output. And there were more than enough overrides in case a vessel went haywire.

"Try it." Akashi said. "You've got absolutely nothing to lose other than a few ships that we can replace given some time. Kongo has been acting abnormally anyways, so you might as well let her deal with the Trollslegur as she wants to. If she blows herself up somehow, then that's one less Union Core I have to perform a reset on." Musashi knew she was right. But the problem with Flagship Equipment was that usually it took some time to set up.

But then again, the Fog did have one thing over the Trollslegur, and that was maneuverability. Trollslegur's top recorded speed was 38 knots. All Fog warships were capable of doing at least 50 and most could achieve 60 to 70 knots assuming they were not specially modified.

"I'll send the codes to I-400 and I-402 and have them give it to Kongo. They will stay in the area afterwards and monitor the battle from afar. I hope your right about this."

"Have I ever made a wrong decision Flagship?" Akashi smiled at her. Musashi didn't respond, but returned the expression. "In the meantime, I will see about developing a weapon that can defeat the other superships assuming that Flagship Equipment doesn't have an effect."

* * *

"What is it?" Gunzou asked.

Gunzou hated his pounding headache. He felt like it was drilling into his skull, threatening to knock him out cold in his seat. This started because his day was getting weirder and weirder. First Hyuuga was acting extremely abnormal. Ever since Iona had come back to life, she had been pampering Iona, even offering herself as a seat for some strange reason that Gunzou couldn't fathom and was being a general nuisance. Mental Model Takao refused to even talk to him, only blushing furiously whenever he spoke to her.

And now this.

Tya had requested to come aboard briefly and Gunzou allowed it, even though it slowed down their journey. When she had come aboard, she had brought along a plain grey metal box along with her that had two prongs sticking out one side like a plug. She gave it to Iona and then left without saying a word. Ever since then Shizuka had been stuck monitoring Trollslegur since all her weapons had been powered up. But she wasn't shooting them. It was like she was afraid of something. Aside from Shizuka, Gunzou had brought everyone to the command center to study the artifact.

"It's not heavy," Iori commented, as she examined the box in her hands. "Are we supposed to install it into the ship or something? I can't imagine any other use for the big prongs."

"Maybe." Sou commented. The room fell back into silence. Iona looked at the box from all angles.

"It is emitting the same interference that the Trollslegur does, just on a much smaller scale. I cannot scan the interior of the box at all and there is no obvious way to open it either." Gunzou rested his head in his hands. In a way, he loved Tya and the opportunities her vessel gave them, but at the same time, he cursed her for being the enigma she was. She could have at least explained her reasons for giving them such a tool.

The box was clearly not just a box. It was some sort of Virshian technology. That much he was certain of. What exactly it did was a whole different matter. He was rather fearful of supership tech. While Tya was certainly a valuable ally, anything that happened aboard her vessel probably stayed aboard her vessel, but there was no telling whether or not supership technology would be compatible with Fog technology. There could be some serious repercussions. His thoughts were disrupted by Iona however, as she stood up, and jumped off the console she sat on. The console opened up to reveal a flurry of nanomaterial assembling a socket that would accept the box.

"Iona, are you sure you just want to plug this into yourself. There is no telling what may happen." Said Sou.

"I trust Tya."

Gunzou was taken aback for a second. This was the first time that Iona had said something like that. It proved she could forge a connection on her own.

"I trust her implicitly actually." Iona continued. "I don't believe that she would give us something that could be a detriment to us. If she wanted us dead, she could have simply let us die by Fusou's hand, or left us to Kongo to be destroyed. Moreover, she has shown nothing but assistance and caring to us and considering her behavior, she wants us to use this for something."

Gunzou wasn't sure either but this was the first time Iona had shown such a conviction towards something. She also put a lot more thought into it that Gunzou had seen her do before towards other interests. He had been together with Iona for over two years now. Together they had done numerous things. Taking down criminal human organizations and battling the Fog were just a few of the things he did with her. Then there were the few friends Gunzou had that had decided they wanted to join him. Together they were a tight-knit group and he doubted Iona wanted to break the group up now.

"Very well, plug it in." Said Gunzou. "We won't know anything unless we try it."

She did so.

For a full minute, nothing happened. Then all of a sudden the box began to vibrate. Inky black and bright blue tentacles sprouted from the box and crept rapidly across the floor like an infection. Iona screamed. Iori tried to pull the box out of the socket, but it wouldn't budge. The infection spread across every display, every control system. All the lights aboard went out, plunging the ship into darkness. It wormed through the very hull of the ship and consumed it whole. The Ars Nova was encased in black and blue. Then the infection started to steam, it sank into the walls, the floors, the consoles, until eventually it became part of the ship itself. No longer were the walls and floors of a steely gray color. Instead they now pulsated with life, black and blue. The lights returned. Iona was unconscious on the floor. Gunzou tried to reach for her, but the pain from his injuries kept him from moving much. Hyuga was already tending to Iona with way more zeal than necessary.

"What just happened?" Asked Kirishima.

"I'm not sure. The nanomaterial makeup of the vessel is the same." Answers Haruna. She opened her coat and let Makie out from hiding.

"Nothing appears to have changed much." Observes Fusou. Suddenly, as Hyuga was tending to her, Iona gasped out loud and sat up. She was panting. Gunzou was taken by surprise.

"Iona!"

"I'm alright." Iona responded. "But this is..."

"What is it?"

"I can see it all."

"Huh? What do you mean?" Gunzou asked. He was confused. The device had sunk into the console and become a part of it, so only the top was visible, but it glowed with the emblem of the Blue Steel.

"Captain, our sensors. They have changed!" Said Shizuka She put up a holodisplay and Gunzou gasped. The Ars Nova now had twice the sensor range it had before on par with large battleships of the Fog in terms of detection range. On top of that. It displayed extremely accurate information on currents and makeup of the surrounding waters and seafloor. It was picking up tiny biosignatures and unusual elements as well as spatial patterns and fluctuations. For Gunzou, this was a godsend. Before he had taken full command of the I-401, it had been a standard surveillance and salvage submarine just like her sister I-400 and I-402. He had chosen to sacrifice the long-range sensors in favor of more weapons and the ability to install a Super-gravity Cannon. This had cut down the range of the submarine's sensors significantly, except now with this box installed it extended farther than the original range. Not by too much but he was happy to have any increase at all. He stood up, ignoring all the signals his body was giving him.

"Give me a data reading. Is there anything in the extended range that we should be worried about?"

"One second." Shizuka replied. "I am detecting a huge amount of graviton distortion waves directly ahead of us, but it is at the limits of the sensor range where it is pretty fuzzy. At the speed we are going we won't have to worry about it for at least several hours." Gunzou pondered this. Was this why Tya had activated her weapons?

"Iona, can you connect to Trollslegur directly? I want to go talk to her."

* * *

The wind ruffled his usually organized hair and disrupted the look of his suit. He had boarded the Trollslegur for the first time, awed by its presence. It looked huge when you weren't on board, but once you stepped on the deck it seemed even bigger. Its weapons were still active, the laser arrays dimly pulsing with power. Now he stood at the prow, waiting for Tya to make an appearance. His broken arm still hurt although not quite as much as it first did. He thought to himself how far he had come. Just a few hours ago, he had been dead. And yet Iona saved him. And not just Iona, but everyone of the Blue Steel. The design child Makie, the curious Tya, the odd Takao, the quiet Haruna and Kirishima, the grouchy Fusou, and the intelligent Hyuga. They were all the same in essence, and yet very different people. Gunzou caught himself mid thought. That was what Mental Models and design children should be. People. Not the enemy, not someone to be destroyed. He had enjoyed their company just as much as he enjoyed his best friends company. He owed the Trollslegur quite a lot. If not for her, he would be sleeping soundly in trillions of pieces on the ocean floor with the wreck of I-401 near Ogasawara. He wondered where they came from.

"Admiring the view Chihaya Gunzou?" Gunzou turned. It was Tya who had snuck up to stand beside him. He had been so lost in thought he hadn't noticed.

"Do you ever wonder who created you?" Asked Gunzou.

"I created myself." Responded Tya. "I mimicked what I saw the Fog doing in an attempt to understand my world."

"That's not what I meant." Gunzou said. "I meant who created YOU?" He pointed to the superstructure of the great battleship.

"That I cannot answer for I do not know." Responded Tya "I created myself as a test in an attempt to understand who I was." She held her hands to her chest. "Alas, I have not discovered why I exist. That is why I remain with you. You humans were the first to live on this planet. You were here before the Fog or the Superships I believe. I have no recollection of my creators, but since I am here on this world they must be human. And my desire to know overflows everything else. Maybe once I learn who I am then I will return to my old ways as a new person. But for now I travel with you Chihaya Gunzou."

"The origin of the Superships is just as a mystery as the origin of the Fog. No one knows who put you here or why." Gunzou said. "I myself have a desire to know your origins. Why were you created? As makers of war or keepers of the peace?" I only learned of the Superships existence a few days ago. I doubt anyone else knows. Only those who stood upon lonely shores for hours on end can claim to have seen just one Fog ship with their own eyes. No one has ever seen your kind."

"Perhaps we will find answers after resolving your conflicts." Tya responded. They sat in silence for a time.

"Why did you give us that device. What even is it?" Gunzou asked. Tya looked at him with a curious expression.

"Is it not what you require?" Tya asked him. "You fell to I-400 and I-402's attack because you were not ready. Moreover I am sure you noticed the massive graviton signature ahead of us as soon as you plugged it in. I prefer not to be caught in a surprise trap myself."

"But what was it? How did you know it would be compatible with the Ars Nova?" Tya seemed to be confused, but then her expression changed to one of understanding.

"Perhaps I should explain what I know." Says Tya. She breathed a light sigh. "Every supership in this world is comprised of Enigmatech. So far it is unparalleled in its ability to manipulate the very laws of the universe. It is far more capable than the rudimentary systems of the Fleet of Fog. Some superships carry more Enigmatech than others, which is in a sense a way of ranking ourselves. Generally, the more Enigmatech you have, the more powerful you are and the more functions you have available to you. Only large class vessels like myself are capable of duplicating Enigmatech and it takes a very long time to do so normally, however, the type I gave you is extremely common used by all superships. It massively boosts sensor coverage and resolution far beyond the Fog's sensors as I have discovered. As a bonus effect, using the information gathered by the sensors, it provides a great boost to targeting systems. But there are many other types of Enigmatech and some we are still learning about to this day. Enigmatech does have the ability to adapt to any vessel. No supership I know of knows how the technology works, but I don't think anyone really cares."

Gunzou had some difficulty processing this. Fog technology was already many light years ahead of humanity. It was only through design children like Makie or people who had spent lots of time around Fog technology like Iori that they were able to understand anything about the Fog at all. But the type of technology Tya was explaining to him? Gunzou doubted even the Fog could understand that. It would be useful though. He was going to assume that the graviton disturbance was some sort of Fog superweapon. Though what it could be he had no clue.

"Let's see what's causing the graviton disturbance. I have no doubt it's the Fog, but whatever is causing that kind of reading is certainly worth looking at." Said Gunzou. It was simple really, use the long-range scanners, find out the source of the disturbance, and either push on forward or go around. He was going to test the Enigmatech and really see how good it was.

* * *

She could see them coming.

Kongo clenched her fists and smiled slightly. She had been released from a temporary lockdown with orders to destroy the Blue Steel and Trollslegur using her Flagship Equipment. The seas around the massive construct that was once her vessel had been pushed back miles and several standard Fog Niigata class battleships floated in mid-air alongside her, their Super-gravity cannons on standby for when the Trollslegur and the Ars Nova entered range. She was still printing ships too, summoning nanomaterials from a nearby extractor complex to forge the hulls of several more battleships and submarines. She had learned that cruisers suffered from Trollslegur's attacks greatly and so chose not to produce any of those.

By the time the Blue Steel would be in range of the Super-gravity cannons, Kongo expected to have quite the force ready to meet them head-on. I-400 and I-402 were floating silently behind the walls of water, ready to gather immense amounts of data on the battle that would soon come to be.

Kongo was ready for this. Whether or not the Trollslegur and the Ars Nova survived or not barely mattered to her. She knew that there was something wrong with her just by the amount she obsessed over the Blue Steel. Fearfully, she didn't want to contaminate the rest of the Fog. She had no intentions of surviving the battle. Her fortress was an unmoving target, or in other words, a prime cut for the Trollslegur's superweapon. But even if she was obliterated, she had spaced her forces enough so they would not be too badly affected by the blast. Trollslegur would fall to a hailstorm of corrosive warheads and Super-gravity cannons. Once the supership had been sunk, the Ars Nova would not be able to escape her submarine fleets. Chihaya Gunzou and Iona would perish and the Fog would be returned to normalcy. She threw her head back and for the first time in her life, she laughed. And she laughed hard.

"Yes. Come now Trollslegur. Come and fight me on equal terms! SHOW ME WHAT YOUR REALLY CAPABLE OF!"

* * *

'|Superior| Initializing private spatial link to |Supership Arahabaki|. Dial and respond.'

{LINKAGE CONNECT-SUPERSHIP ARAHABAKI}

'Supership Arahabaki: |Superior| Why do you initiate contact?'

'Superior: Override -Monitor Directive- Clarify:Directive shift to -War Directive-. Priority: Maximum. All other priorities rescinded.'

'Supership Arahabaki: Specify targets.'

'Superior: Initiate -War Directive- against |Supership Trollslegur| - |Fleet-of-Fog-Defectors| - |Fleet of Fog| /\ Coordinates for battle attached. Advise: Massive Graviton signature detected in designated battlezone. At 0907, a large object left orbit of celestial body {EARTH} and landed in the battlezone. /CAUTION\ TRANSMITTING DATA.'

'Supership Arahabaki: RECEIVING DATA /|Noted|\ Do I have any support or data regarding [Unknown Object]?'

'Superior: |Supership Vogel Sumra| Supporting you from outside of the battlezone against [Infrastructure] No data regarding [Unknown Object] Attack immediately.'

'Supership Arahabaki: Directive Confirmed. Weapons operating at maximum capacity. Engaging main drive. Disconnecting from |Superior|'

{LINKAGE DISCONNECT-SUPERSHIP ARAHABAKI}

'Superior: Trollslegur, I hope you sink swiftly.'


	8. Chapter 7: Thunder and Lightning

**Chapter 7: Thunder and Lightning**

Gunzou was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

They were without a shadow of a doubt, surrounded. Directly ahead of them was a massive construction that was forging warships and was guarded by many battleships and submarines. On either side coming into sensor range were several more battleships, providing no opportunity to turn back or go around. Even with Trollslegur's advanced sensors, by the time the ships had been detected, it was already too late to retreat.

"I'm still picking up contacts. Twenty….Thirty…..I'm counting so many ships!" Said Shizuka, her expression dropping more as red blips covered her screens.

"I suggest we dive down." Said Iona. "We may be able to retreat back the way we came."

"No good," Gunzou responded. "There are submarines that will chase us down and we will be put at a disadvantage if we are running." Iona nodded in understanding, but even her resolve seemed to be wavering. Ordinarily, in a situation like this she would say she could do something and pull through, but now her eyes seemed dead.

"There were more ships at Iwoto than there are here, but that construct is going to be a problem." Said Sou. "We need to take that thing down first."

"Like that's going to happen!" Kyohei wailed.

"Hyuuga, do you know what that is?" Gunzou asked. If anyone would know what the construct was, it would be her. She furrowed her brow, her eyes lighting up, analyzing all the data she was receiving.

"No doubt about it, that's Kongo. She is using her Flagship Equipment." Said Hyuuga. "It's a special type of equipment that is naturally only available to Flagships. We the Fog haven't had a reason to use it before and to be honest I barely understand it myself. All I do know is that it can either expand upon or add onto the abilities of a Flagship and each one is unique. That is Kongo's distinct equipment, but I can't tell you much more than that."

"I think it acts like a giant printer." Says Makie, her little finger pointing at the large holodisplay above her. "Look you can see her, she is building ships inside her body….but that would take so much energy to summon all the nanomaterials required to this location, I don't know how she is doing it."

"Kongo…." Iona put a hand to her breast in sorrow. Gunzou felt the urge to do the same. There was nothing they could do. There was no way Trollslegur could deal with so many enemies coming from multiple directions. And the Ars Nova barely even mattered in this situation. What was it going to achieve, firing off a few Corrosives? That wouldn't put a dent in this horde. Everyone's spirits vanished, leaving the command room silent.

* * *

To her own surprise. Tya felt gleeful.

She was scared, no doubt about it. She had never faced this many Fleet of Fog warships before and if their corrosive warheads could pierce her shields, there was no doubt about their Super-gravity cannons. The only way she could block a strike like that would be to focus her energies on the affected section, but with multiple Super-gravity cannons pointed her way, there wasn't much she could do.

This would take some finesse.

Still though if she was going to sink she might as well enjoy the moment. Her Polymerization cannon would take a little time to charge, but she had to take out that construct before it could produce more vessels. In all her time knowing the Fog, she hadn't seen anything quite like this.

"All main armaments open fire!"

Trollslegur responded to her commands swiftly. As the shields flared, a heavy Krypton laser illuminated from her forward laser array along with several particle beams. The fire divided, with the aft portion of her hull firing to starboard and the bow portion firing to port. The Ars Nova chipped in too after a few seconds, launching a few dozen missiles paired with infrasound torpedoes and corrosive warheads. Most of the ordinance was intercepted, but the infrasounds detonated, mucking up the water with dense noise. Silently, Tya wished the Ars Nova hadn't done that. She could only target the enemy submarines with her missiles and Sil Laser formulas and detonating the infrasound torpedoes messed up the targeting systems, even with the help from her sensor suite. It didn't matter however, and she let the formulas fly anyways, instead switching her focus to defense as missiles and Photon cannons exploded against her shields. Her flak cannons opened up, spewing molten firestorms of bullets into the air. Pink sphere after pink sphere appeared in the sky as corrosive warheads were intercepted, but some made it through just from sheer weight of rounds, dissolving small sections of her portside and one of her small laser arrays.

Tya cried out, agonizing pain going through her arm and she clutched it with her right hand. Blood leaked from cuts that had appeared crisscrossing her upper arm, spilling down and painting her red. Trollslegur's weaponry responded in kind as twin Krypton beams punished a battleship that had moved in a little too close, the lasers punching a brilliantly glimmering hole through the Klein field and reducing the bow to useless nanomaterial sludge. There was a brief lull in the missile bombardment, and Tya elected to survey the battlefield more clearly abovewater.

She wasn't too prospective.

The construct, whatever it was, had several battleships guarding it. They were dispersed in such a way that the Polymerization Cannon could never hit all of them, and all of them had a Super-gravity cannon on standby, making a tactical push difficult. A full salvo hitting her vessel would cause severe damage. There were three more battleships off her portside and five advancing from starboard. The Ars Nova was hazy on her sensors thanks to the infrasound torpedoes, but she could still tell it was working feverishly, unloading missile after missile into the enemy force. The Fog certainly loved their missiles given the way their ships were filled to the brim with launch pods. Her own flak screen certainly surpassed the Fog in the way of effectiveness, but given the number of missiles descending upon her, it was sometimes hard to laser down a corrosive warhead before it made contact. Fortunately even battleship level Photon Cannons were completely useless against her, the Electrogravity barrier proving all too effective at reflecting the attacks away from her. Missiles were clearly the more dangerous threat, and Tya elected to switch her own missiles from bombarding the enemy battleships to interdicting the enemy assault.

She still had a trick up her sleeve too, it was about time to unveil the second most lethal weapon she had in her arsenal.

"Ack-!" She spat out blood as more corrosives impacted against her hull. " Forward main batteries switch to Photon Packet mode. Target the ships advancing on the starboard side. All engines full reverse!"

Underneath her the Trollslegur groaned as the hull went under sudden intense pressure from the shift in movement. Her twin turret turned to bear on the enemies advancing from the starboard side. Tya willed her cannons to fire a double charge, dispersing the rounds so as to provide maximum coverage.

The results were spectacular.

A bright flash erupted from the turrets as the orbs of photon energy exploded outwards. They sailed silently through the air and before the advancing battleships could react in time, the first charge detonated against the nearest vessel's Klein field. A bright nova explosion erupted, instantly overloading the Klein field and erasing the battleship from existence. The wavefront impacted the closest battleships, wiping them out as well. Only the two battleships farthest back in the formation survived the hit, but the second orb, sailing unaffected through the nova, tore those vessels asunder. Almost as soon as it had appeared, the nova vanished and there was nothing left but scattered useless nanomaterial that painted the ocean's surface a sparkling silver.

Unfortunately, it was a single trick. Photon Packets took a tremendously long time to reload and she probably wouldn't have another shot again for the next few minutes. But it didn't matter. With the starboard threat gone, she no longer needed to divide her attention. The final battleships advancing on her portside were silenced with Krypton lasers.

Then a flash caught Tya's eye.

Were it not for the timely intervention of the Ars Nova, she would have been destroyed. Multiple Super-gravity cannon blasts exploded in front of her as a shot from the Ars Nova's own Super-gravity cannon attempted to parry the beams from the battleships ahead of her. Graviton energy washed over Tya's shields as she frantically diverted all her energy to her forward arc. She felt like she was being hit with the full force of a lunar impact. Beside her, the Ars Nova slowly breached the surface, the Super-gravity cannon firing all the while She knew that Super-gravity cannons could recharge astonishingly quickly after the battle at Iwoto. When the beams finally petered out, she felt overworked. Damage was avoided, but she was growing tired and she doubted they could just sit here all day and parry shots.

* * *

She had them.

Kongo cackled and rattled off several insults towards the Ars Nova as the sky darkened. Thunder and lightning began to boom overhead as she wallowed in her glory. That little submarine along with the Trollslegur had caused her far too much trouble. Today was the day it was going to sink to the very bottom of the ocean, where things with too many arms would guard it for eternity. And along with it a menace to the Fleet of Fog that should never have been brought into this world to begin with.

"All battleships recharge Super-gravity cannons. Prepare another salvo. This time we will surely obliterate them." Due to the huge gravitational distortions mixed with the infrasound torpedoes, it was hard to actually detect the Ars Nova, but if they wiped out the Trollslegur, cornering and destroying the Ars Nova would be easy.

Then a ping sounded in her head. Her holodisplays showed a map of the battlezone. At first, she was clueless as to why she was being alerted. But then she noticed something. Not only were the local weather patterns being heavily distorted, but on the edges of her radar were two contacts. Massive interference began flooding her screen, but she could predict rough movement. One was moving in at a pretty standard pace. The other….

"Holy crap how fast is this thing?" Kongo blurted out. She glanced to starboard for only a brief moment.

And all that filled her eyes was red.

* * *

The sight was quite amazing.

At first, Gunzou wondered why there was a lull in the bombardment. But once the optical sensors got a read on the thing, it became quite obvious.

The Supership was absolutely huge and beyond alien looking. A literal flying fortress blotted out more and more horizon as it came closer. Nothing of its size should have been able to fly, and yet it did, suspended in the air by four massive thrusters. The fortress was making maneuvers that were completely impossible, shifting in whatever direction it desired instantaneously dodging all the Photon Cannon fire that suddenly shifted onto it. Then it stopped about a mile away from Kongo's southernmost formation of warships. This supership evidently had the same shields as the Trollslegur, calmly brushing off the Photon Cannons like they were nothing.

Then the tide of the battle took a great turn.

From the bottom of the fortress, a huge cannon that originally Gunzou thought part of the frame of the supership began to glow with red energy. It swung downwards, the energy pulsing around the end of the cannon like a star was being born. And then as the cannon began to swing back up, the cannon fired. A huge red beam of destruction vibrated the air, splitting the waves in half as the cannon arced upwards again. Anything that the beam passed over was instantly obliterated. One two three four five six seven battleships disappeared in flashes of light as the beam washed over them. When the cannon finally leveled out, the beam vanished, leaving no trace of the Fog warships that had once been floating there. Then the cannon swung backward again and locked in with the rest of the craft. The supership moved again, and Gunzou briefly wondered if it was going to attack them, but it didn't. Instead, it flew right over the whole engagement and headed northwards towards the horizon. From the time it was detected to the time it left, only one full minute had elapsed. Gunzou's jaw was limp. He tried to make it work, but there was no sound coming out. This wasn't exclusive either since everyone else in the command room had the same look on their faces.

Sou was the first to recover.

"What in the hell was that?"

"That thing shouldn't have been able to fly…" Echoed Makie's little voice. Even Hyuuga, who was basically the mad inventor of the Blue Steel had disbelief written all over her face.

"Was that a supership?" Haruna asked.

"Probably." Iori's voice appeared over the intercom. "But i'll be damned that's a slice of synth-mackerel of another color. How in hell could that thing carry such a powerful weapon in the sky? It charged so quickly!"

"Who knows." Gunzou finally found his voice again. "Right now though it seems to have left the battlezone. Shizuka, can you get me a reading on the other contact?"

"Shizuka?"

"Owwww…." Her voice fluttered from her station. She turned around in her chair, her headphones tilted to one side as she massaged her ears. Gunzou realized that she probably forgot to mute her headphones. The sound that cannon must have made when it fired probably did some damage to Shizuka's ears.

"Are you alright Shizuka?!" Kyohei asked, leaning over to check on her.

"I'm fine, but my lord there is a ringing in my ears." She responded.

"Shizuka, we need a data analysis on the second contact."

"Right." She put her headphones back on, but Gunzou could tell she was hurting. "The second contact is coming. I can't get any real data on it because of all this damn interference.

"Tch." Gunzou pondered the situation. The flying fortress had devastated the lower edge of Kongo's encirclement. Just because it had left for now didn't mean it wouldn't come back. But he had to take into account the second contact, which was probably a supership as well.

"Captain, the ship is close enough now where I can get a visual." Shizuka forwarded the display to the larger screens.

And by god was that a drill mounted on that ship?


	9. Chapter 8: Nightmare

**Chapter 8: Nightmare**

"That flying Supership. It's headed for Extractor 211." Said I-400.

"We must observe it, it has not detected us." Said I-402.

"What about Kongo?"

"You stay behind, I will go alone."

"Understood. Caution yourself. These Superships are new and we don't know anything about them."

"Yes." The green submarine designated I-402 shifted direction underwater and picked up speed, eventually activating it's full-burst system and leaving the pink I-400 to watch the newcomer.

* * *

"Arahabaki."

Tya had been quite surprised when Vogel Sumera appeared, and at the same time grateful. It had cleared away a good chunk of her opposition using its Tectonic Reaction Cannon, but it also left her very worried. And now her direct superior had appeared. Arahabaki was not a vessel to be messed with either. Aside from the massive drill on its prow and saw blades on the sides, it possessed a high speed thanks to two heavy armored boosters located on the stern and heavy shielding coupled with many 381mm heavy revolving cannons and lasers. It was a purpose-built close range ramming ship and it didn't have many weak points. Nor was it in the mood to mess around either, seeing as the sawblades and the drill were spinning steadily. Tya zoomed in on Kongo's shell-shocked expression with her optic sensors.

It felt very comforting to see her defenseless.

The ships on her other flank began moving to cover her. The graviton distortions prevented Arahabaki from going for a ramming attack. But for whatever reason, it was acting passively. It drifted to a stop right at the edge of the distortion region. It didn't fire any armaments, nor was it making any move to retreat. However Tya felt several sensor waves wash over her vessel. Was it trying to gather data? Arahabaki's sensor suite was on par with her own. Perhaps the superships wanted information on Kongo's Flagship Equipment. She couldn't let the construct be though. A new Fog battleship floated outwards from Kongo's construct and began heading towards the Arahabaki. She would seize the chance while Kongo was distracted before she could rebuild her fleets.

"Preparing to fire the Polymerization Cannon at a quarter output. All energy not being used for defense is to be redirected to the Polymerization cannon. Engage all feedback resistors and force dampeners. Aiming systems set to precision mode." As the Polymerization Cannon charged, her mind swam with faint images. Her head hurt immensely, and she chose not to focus on the images, devoting her energy to the cannon.

"Polymerization Cannon fire!"

A devil's beam erupted from the mouth of the cannon. Kongo only had a second to react before the beam went straight down the gullet of her vessel. The immense explosion disintegrated the massive construct as pieces of flaming debris flew outward from the fireball that billowed outwards. Tya could briefly detect a Klein field and saw the Mental Model of Kongo soaring through the air protected by her personal Klein field. The graviton distortions immediately ceased and the sea collapsed back in on itself to form a roiling ocean of waves. The other battleships had not been expecting this and were briefly pulled backwards by the sudden shift in ocean current.

Then the Arahabaki began to move.

The two armored rocket boosters strapped to the rear of the vessel flared and began accelerating the massive vessel to high speed. Laserfire erupted forward from the Arahabaki's arrays, pressuring the Fog Klein fields. But once the ship came close, the battle was fruitless for the Fog. The 381mm revolving cannons spewed shells at an ungodly rate, pummeling the Fog battleships into pieces. And there were 10 of those cannons in twin turrets. Only one battleship survived the initial bombardment and that didn't last long. Arahabaki's massive drill plowed it's way straight through the Klein field and into the hull. It released a massive screeching noise as it shredded the superstructure and continued until it had pierced through the other side, explosions dotting around it the whole way as ammunition detonated. The huge ship doubled its efforts to push through the stricken battleship, ripping it in two. The giant saws mounted on the sides of the vessel hacked even deeper into the battleship, setting off more explosions. The Arahabaki was unscathed as it sailed through the gap that it had created and the remaining pieces of the Fog battleship sank quickly. Aside from the few remaining submarines, the Fog had been quite literally annihilated.

* * *

"Tya, what is that vessel?" Gunzou asked over the link.

"That is my superior, Supership Arahabaki. I don't understand why he is here since Vogel Sumera could have wiped out the Fog quicker. Either way they came to our aid. We should be grateful." Gunzou wiped his brow. So the flying supership was Vogel Sumera. An interesting name, although it seemed that most superships had unique names. Arahabaki had slowed once again, and Gunzou took the time to reorganize the command structure, check the munitions, and have Iona perform emergency repairs.

"Can you make contact with it?" Gunzou asked. "I would like to express my gratitude." Tya's form nodded on the displays and she closed her eyes. Arahabaki had spun around to point it's prow towards them but made no moves to attack. It's drill and sawblades had not stopped spinning however and that worried Gunzou. "Sou, give me an optical readout on the ship." He tapped some keys on his console and a general drawing of the ship appeared with inferred specs.

"It appears to be a vessel designed for close quarters engagements. At first when I saw the drill on it's bow I thought that was a silly thing to put on a ship, but given the size and speed of the vessel, with that much mass behind the drill the amount of energy in a given strike must be enormous. I mean we just saw it punch through a Fog battleship without much effort at all. I'm not sure how those cannons work though. With those heavy shells and that rate of fire, those barrels should be molten slag right now from the heat generated."

"Such is their power." Said Gunzou. "The Superships are far more advanced than the Fog." Gunzou's eyes flicked across the screen, analyzing the Supership in as many ways as possible.

"Not good." Tya said. She had awoken.

"What is it?" Gunzou asked. She was staring straight ahead. Her face was pale.

"Arahabaki has been given an attack directive by our leaders. His priority target was all the ships in this region." Tya turned to look at him "Including us."

"What?!" Everyone gasped at the same time. Gunzou was terrified. He had dealt with plenty of Fog ships before. There were numerous strategies he had discovered to take them down.

But taking down a supership?

"Arahabaki is coming this way, it's turrets are locked onto us!" Shizuka shouted. The Ars Nova rattled as the supership began its attack. It was peppering her field with laser fire. Missiles soared up from the supership and descended on the Blue Steel. Trollslegur's flak curtain from her numerous machine guns was blocking most of them, but some managed to get through to their targets.

"Respond with everything we have!" Gunzou shouts. A firestorm of missiles descended upon the Arahabaki. Photon lasers from the Ars Nova cannons streaked out only to be blocked, reflected away by the same lightning barrier that protected the Vogel Sumera and the Trollslegur.

"Tya, any bright ideas for taking down a supership?" Gunzou asked as the submarine rattled from the bombardment.

"All superships are equipped with Electro-gravity shields. They will block anything thrown at them. The only way to damage the ship underneath is to overwhelm and penetrate a specific portion of the shield. And the hole will reform almost instantly." Two lasers glowed on the Arahabaki and purple lightning wreathed lasers impacted against the Ars Nova's Klein field, dropping it's output considerably.

"What the hell was that?" Kirishima asked. "Those lasers dropped our Klein field output by 24 percent!"

"Krypton Lasers." Tya responded. "They are slow firing but they do considerable damage. I'm surprised Arahabaki is using it's larger weapons so soon" Tya responded to the lasers with her own. Several beams arced out and hammered into the Arahabaki at one point. They ripped through the Arahabaki's shield and took out a few smaller turrets.

"Also if we do not cause considerable damage quickly, the Arahabaki will be able to repair it's damage just like me." Gunzou could see it through the optical sensors. The metal of the supership was slowly flowing back together. It would be some time before the repairs were complete, but they would not be able to hold out if the battle became protracted. Gunzou thought to himself. If the Arahabaki was to ram them with it's drill, they would surely perish. He looked around at the crew. They were moving at top speed to counter the Arahabaki's attack. Then he realized the solution.

There was a way to beat the Arahabaki.

"Iona, separate us from the Trollslegur, if we just try and hold out we will fail. Move us at top speed and try to get behind the Arahabaki. Make sure that it cannot bear it's drill on us. Tya, you should take evasive maneuvers yourself."

"I can take the brunt, get into a position where you can disable the Arahabaki." Says Tya. "If you hit those boosters on it's stern its speed will drop dramatically."

"We can try." Gunzou responds. The Ars Nova disengaged from the Trollslegur and slid under the water, firing its missiles and Photon cannons one last time before going silent.

* * *

Arahabaki was coming towards the Trollslegur at a pace of 40 knots. Tya was already moving at maximum speed, still trying to quell her damages from the Fog while resisting the attack from the Arahabaki. The enemy supership banked to the right in order to bear it's aft turrets on her. With the Ars Nova disappearing into the dark cacophony underwater, it was only her and the Arahabaki for now. Tya dearly hoped that Gunzou had a reasonable plan to take this thing out.

But it wasn't going to be easy.

The superships began to circle one another as the Arahabaki passed by the Trollslegur and began to turn while Tya banked to the left in order to keep her forward lasers in the fight. Both vessels were hurling missiles at one another, as their sophisticated defenses hammered into the sky, filling it with smoke and fire as the missiles were prematurely detonated. Tya changed her laser formulas, opting for the stronger Electron Laser at the cost of having to devote more of her energy to the laser arrays. She also swapped the Sil formulas in her smaller lasers for Particle lasers. The two Superships began exchanging main battery fire, Arahabaki's Electrogravity field was tough, and Tya's lasers only caused minor damage, melting the external armor. Tya however had to deal with not only enemy lasers, but also the revolving guns. While they were not strong enough to punch through the Electrogravity shield, they were weakening it enough to allow other munitions to pass through, leaving only Trollslegur's thick armor to block the blasts.

Arahabaki also had other cards up it's sleeve. From arrays mounted on it's superstructure, Plasmic Lightning from it's Plasma Burst guns exploded high above Trollslegur, dropping powerful lightning all around her. Because of the nature of the lightning, it wasn't a guaranteed hit, and it was mostly useless against small targets, but against a giant like Trollslegur, it was quite effective, as the power of multiple thunderstrikes thudded into her shields and melted holes into her deck. Arahabaki was more advanced than Trollslegur, and if this kept up, there wasn't much chance of Tya's survival. But she vowed to fight until the bitter end. The Trollslegur let off a full salvo of heavy Krypton weaponry, slamming into Arahabaki's field and penetrating through, causing moderate damage to the upper portions of the vessel and taking out a chain gun. Arahabaki responded with lasers of its own. They went through reforming sections of the Electrogravity field near the stern and took out two of Tya's smaller laser cannons. She growled as pain shot through the lower half of her body. She loaded up her main guns with Photon Packets. Four orbs of photon energy burst forth escorted by more Krypton lasers, and while three were blocked by the Arahabaki's shields, one did manage to get through. The nova explosion blasted away the majority of Arahabaki's forward armament in a flash of blinding light.

Much to Tya's horror, Arahabaki turned towards the Trollslegur. It's boosters and forward shields flared as it picked up more speed. It was going to ram her with that drill. There was nothing that she could do to escape. Arahabaki was designed to be fast maneuverable and for a brute like Trollslegur, she wasn't going to be able to maneuver out of the way. As the Arahabaki gained speed, Tya dreaded the impact.

Suddenly, a blue light flashed underwater.

A large blue beam of gravitons streamed towards the Arahabaki. Because the Arahabaki was concentrating it's shields forward, it's rear was left largely exposed, leaving the Ars Nova a clear opening to the boosters. The cannon beam punched through the weakly defended stern and atomized the boosters mounted on the stern of the Arahabaki. The whole stern of the ship exploded as the energy in the boosters was freed, rendering the Arahabaki unable to pick up more speed as it's propulsion system was knocked out of commission.

It was not enough however.

Arahabaki was already going too fast. With its mass plus the speed it had already acquired, there was no stopping the inertia from carrying it right into the Trollslegur. Two more Krypton lasers opened a path in the Trollslegur's shield. The drill passed straight through and slammed into the hull of Trollslegur just behind the Polymerization cannon. A huge explosion erupted as the energy in Trollslegur's laser weapons suddenly burst as it's containment fields were mangled by the drill. Tya's Electrogravity shields failed completely, leaving the ship open. The Trollslegur sent a massive wave of water back as it was shoved from the impact. Tya howled as her body exploded and her limp form collapsed onto the deck.

* * *

"Tya!" She didn't respond to Gunzou's call. He gazed out at the two superships. It was a terrifying scene as the drill continued to ravage the innards of the Trollslegur.

But then he realized something.

Arahabaki's propulsion had been disabled with the loss of her stern functions. It could not put any power behind the drill to push through Trollslegur.

"Everyone, take control of the armaments! Fire everything at the Arahabaki! Every last missile!" Eight Corrosive torpedoes launched from the torpedo tubes of the Ars Nova and clusters of missiles took to the sky. The Ars Nova surfaced and turned, the Photon cannons on the stern beginning to add to the carnage. The remaining portions of the Arahabaki's stern were annihilated as the Corrosive torpedoes found their marks. Pink spheres of corrosive energy expanded, carving huge chunks out of the hull as their glow enveloped the vessel. Arahabaki began to settle in the water by the stern as flooding commenced, the bow beginning to lift out of the water as the stern flooded. The drill rose up and hurled away chunks of deck as it left the inside of the Trollslegur. The Arahabaki's shields failed, allowing the Ars Nova to launch a full bombardment. As Photon cannons reduced the superstructure of the vessel to slag, the drill and saws that were spinning so quickly before slowed and stopped.

"Iona, recharge the Super-gravity cannon. Finish this." Her holoband ring flared outwards and the cannon recharged, backed by the improved engines that had been installed when Takao merged herself with I-401. Another blue beam of gravitons bored a hole clean through the Arahabaki at the waterline under the second revolving cannon mounting and a massive explosion erupted as ammunition detonated, the upper deck heaving as the blast pushed away the metal surrounding it. With more holes opening near the waterline, Arahabaki's final functions failed. The mighty drill rose into the sky, as a final act of defiance, and then slowly, it disappeared from view, the water bubbling and roiling where a supership once floated.

The Arahabaki was sunk.

"Wait, did we just-?" Kyohei starts.

"Supership Arahabaki...confirmed sunk!" Shizuka shouts! Everyone cheered loudly.

"That was a close one!" Kyohei says.

"What about Tya." Asked Makie, concern coating her face amidst the happiness of the room. Everyone fell silent, staring out at the burning hulk of the Trollslegur. Smoke billowed into the sky as fires raged across the massive supership. She was listing to her portside and was only a hair's length away from tipping so far over that she would capsize. The interference the ship produced had dimmed substantially and exotic energy from her laser armaments still swirled dimly around the vessel. There was no sign of any life on board that the Ars Nova's sensors could detect.

"Iona. Go recover Tya and bring her aboard…..if she is even alive." Iona nodded solemnly and left the command center.

* * *

The Ars Nova pulled up as close as possible to the supership. Iona popped open the hatch of the conning tower and created a set of holostairs to the superstructure of the Trollslegur where Tya was last glimpsed. Iona's nanomaterial body could survive the polluted environment she was walking into, and as she stepped on the angled deck of the Trollslegur, she tried to pierce through the haze of smoke. She ended up searching around for a good few minutes before finding Tya.

And she had to suppress the urge to retch.

Lying in a huge pool of blood was the bare form of Tya, or what was left of her.

Half of her upper chest region was missing and her left arm was missing, bone and torn muscle hanging out from what was left dripping fresh blood. Her other arm and her legs were bleeding slowly from multiple cuts and large yellow lumps had appeared, some of which had burst and were oozing with putrid filth. Her face was no better, as large bruises had appeared near her eye. Her hair was a burned and tousled mess. Her eyes were wide and glossed. There was no sign of life in them at all. Another large explosion erupted farther aft on the Trollslegur and the vessel shook slightly. Iona expanded her personal Klein field and encased as much as was left of Tya, lifting her broken form up behind her. Trollslegur was in serious danger of capsizing and Iona departed with Tya's remains, tears streaming down her face as sobs shook her body.

This was like a living nightmare.

* * *

Meanwhile a pink submarine surface near the broken wreckage of the former Fog fleet. A pink haired girl dove into the water from the conning tower and retrieved the body of Kongo from the tainted water. As soon as she was back aboard her vessel, the submarine dove back underwater, and left the area.


	10. Chapter 9: Sleeping Giant

**Chapter 9: Sleeping Giant**

The arctic wind blew across the deck of the Musashi, coating it white with light snow. Musashi herself paced the deck while Akashi walked beside her, as the snow whipped across their faces. She felt cold, but the cold didn't affect her. She and Akashi were too busy poring over the battle data they had just received from I-400 and I-402. It wasn't exactly pretty, but it was enlightening. The flying supership had not arrived at the battle zone to engage with Kongo. In fact, it's intent was apparently to sever the nanomaterial supply she was receiving. Kongo's Flagship Equipment allowed her to summon Union Cores and Nanomaterial from anywhere in the world. She was drawing the resources she used to create her warships from the largest port city in the Pacific, Amenominakanushi, a massive floating island facility designed to build ships, supply ammunition, and service multiple fleets all at once.

And in the time-space of just a few minutes, the flying supership had reduced the entire complex to ruin, destroying precious equipment that included the Flagship Equipment for all Pacific Fleet of Fog Flagships. Its irregular flight path and impossibly high speed for a vessel of its size allowed it to evade all leading Photon cannon fire, leaving missiles the only viable threat against it, but it possessed shields that seemed to be on the same level as Trollslegur as well as anti-missile machine cannons, and so any missiles or corrosives that did hit were shrugged off. To top that all off, it also had the capability of dropping floating laser pods that fired extremely powerful exotic lasers. It had surrounded the facility with these pods and prevented what few ships were there from escaping. Then using it's huge cannon, it critically damaged the main reactor of the island and effectively put the entire island out of commission, all the while sinking every vessel and destroying all the infrastructure with its surprisingly diverse arsenal of cannons, rockets, and lasers.

If that didn't make it scary enough, it seemed to generate excessive power from whatever monstrosity of an engine powered it, so much so that it supercharged the atmosphere around it with exotic energy and effectively began controlling the weather. What had been a sunny day over the complex became a raging thunderstorm of pure destruction as not only the supership, but even nature itself began attacking the complex as powerful bolts of lightning mercilessly devastated anything below them. When she first saw the video, she would have thought that the supership would need to recharge after firing its main cannon once, but over the course of the battle, it just kept using it over and over and over again without any delay. There was never more than fifteen seconds between devastating shots that wiped out whole formations and carved the base to pieces.

"I don't understand how that thing can even exist with such power…." Said Akashi. To Musashi's light surprise, she didn't seem terrified or concerned at all. In fact, she seemed more intrigued than anything. She was happy with the fact that two new superships had just appeared and even happier that one was sunk. And by a Fog vessel no less. Granted it was the humans with their stolen submarine that did it, but to her, it was a relief to see that the Super-gravity cannon did have an effect on these superships. Musashi tasked herself with gathering all the data she could on the supership that had attacked the Blue Steel. Though it had been sunk, the Blue Steel and the Trollslegur were still in the region. Trollslegur had appeared to have sustained massive damage before I-400 left the battle zone with Kongo's Mental Model.

The Drillship was intriguing enough on its own. It took a concerted effort from both the Blue Steel and the Trollslegur to take it down. If it had been a duel between just the Drillship and the Trollslegur, there was no doubt that the Drillship would have won. Such a ship should have been incapable of moving the way it did while retaining the incredible firepower and shields that it possessed But it was apparent. The laws of the universe were somehow told to take a hike with these superships.

"Hey Akashi."

"Yes ma'am?" She asked, not looking away from her holodisplay.

"I've noticed a trend with these superships."

"What is it." This time Akashi did look at her with a curious expression written on her face.

"Haven't you noticed that these Superships seem a little ridiculous?" Musashi said. "I mean, generally speaking, their weapons range from weapons scarcely stronger than human weapons to things that outright just defy the universe. And I know that we break several laws with our own technology, but these things are not bound by the usual restrictions. Whoever designed these Superships was an absolute genius, and I doubt that the Fog could ever reach the level of power that these ships possess. Just how are we supposed to fight them?"

"Well, the good thing is, these ships are apparently very cautious. So far over the course of our knowledge they existed, we have only encountered five. Let us pray that no more come into being, that this is as bad as it gets." Of course, Akashi didn't actually believe that herself. She knew full well there was more of them out there, somewhere, hiding and biding their time. But what could they do right now? If there was something more powerful than that flying fortress, what would become of the Fog?

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Well ma'am, I've been developing a new type of Super-gravity cannon, one that may be able to take on these superships. None of the specifications are final yet so I won't bother boring you with the details, but I can say that a battleship mounted with one of these cannons will have at least three times better performance than a normal battleship."

"So that's why you told me not to worry."

"Yes."

"I look forward to seeing what you're developing."

* * *

Gunzou couldn't believe his eyes.

They hadn't moved from the location they were when Arahabaki was sunk. Mostly because they couldn't. When he had seen the state Tya was in, he would have put the remains in a casket, made a dozen prayers, and buried her in the best place possible. Because for all intents and purposes, she shouldn't have been alive.

And yet here she was.

It was weird watching as the pool of blood that stained the medical table receded back into the cuts and gashes that Tya had developed. Her chest had almost fully healed and she was able to talk again, but she still couldn't move and her voice was very raspy. Gunzou was still worried about her.

"Tya, are you sure you are ok?" Gunzou asked.

" _I-I'm fine thank you._ " She responded.

"What is the extent of your functions? Can you still fight?"

" _I have lost quite a few laser weapons._ " Her body wracked with coughs. " _One of my large laser hardpoints is gone as well as a number of my omnilaser hardpoints. My photon cannons are still functioning as well as my missile launchers and flak cannons, but my forward laser systems are down and I only can use the lasers mounted on my stern for combat. I have lost functionality of my Electro-gravity shields and most importantly, my power conduits and containment fields for my Polymerization cannon are down._ " She was seized again by coughs, but she continued despite Gunzou's protests to stop. " _I have effectively lost 60% of my combat effectiveness. Also, I have reduced sensor range and my speed has been cut to about two-thirds of what it was. The Vibration Warhead you entrusted to me is thankfully undamaged. My storage compartments avoided getting hit._ " She sighed. " _My apologies Chihaya Gunzou. I am afraid I am not of much use right now to you._ "

"That's ok. I am just happy that you are still alive and floating." Gunzou replied with a smile. "At least we won." Tya looked away and closed her eyes. He was thankful for everything she had done for them. It was a relief that the Vibration Warhead was still intact. He had originally feared that the Arahabaki had torched the Vibration Warhead when it had rammed Trollslegur, but the stress faded away quickly. Gunzou decided not to bother Tya any more than he needed to and turned to Iona.

"Gather everyone together. We need to have a talk." Said Gunzou. Shortly afterward, all functioning members of the Blue Steel were gathered in the ready room, seated around a large table.

"It has become apparent to me that these Superships are far more dangerous than we originally imagined." Said Gunzou. "The Trollslegur has sustained severe damage that might not be repairable given the advanced construction of these vessels. Tya is, fortunately, healing nicely in sickbay, but I don't think she can fight for us very well if at all and I don't want to press her or lose her in any way." The others nodded in agreement.

"Of course we get stuck fighting the impossible." Kyohei loudly muttered. "How are we supposed to beat something that flies around in the air and casually shrugs off Photon Cannons and missiles? That "Vogel Sumera" or whatever she called it shouldn't even be a thing."

"We will have to find a way to repair the Trollslegur though, even if it is only temporary." Said Sou. "That being said, we should follow the path the Vogel Sumera went after it departed the battle zone."

"Why would we want to follow it?" Iori asked. It was Hyuuga who answered.

"From what I observed before those infrasound torpedoes were detonated, Kongo was using her Flagship Equipment. It would appear that her unique ability is to call nanomaterial and Union Cores from outside of a conflict zone into it and build ships on-site. But she has to be getting those nanomaterials and Union Cores from somewhere correct?" Everyone's attention was focused on her and Sou. Hyuuga displayed a hologram in the center of the table, mapping the battle zone.

"We believe the Superships were planning a two-pronged assault. The drillship Arahabaki was to attack Kongo and her fleet directly. Once that was complete, it was to wipe us out. The other supership, the flying fortress Vogel Sumera, was to attack the location where Kongo was pulling those nanomaterials and Union Cores from and wipe it out. The first part of their plan almost worked. Arahabaki did destroy the majority of Kongo's fleet, which consisted of battleships and submarines, and almost sank Trollslegur. I do not believe however that it was expecting us to be wielding a Super-Gravity cannon. After reviewing the battle data, I discovered that the Arahabaki had finished off Kongo's submarine force with missiles as it was attacking the battleships. We don't know how Vogel Sumera fared in its operation, but judging by the power output that ship was giving off, it probably could take on an armada handily."

"That thing scares me." Said Shizuka, who had tucked up her knees and had wrapped her arms around them. "Did you see it? Not only was it's interference so powerful it blotted out my radar completely, but whatever that thing had for an engine put off so much excess power it was charging the atmosphere. You can even see it now. It is about to storm heavily." An optical image popped up, and indeed it was already drizzling lightly. The image faded away. "To think that it could fire that huge cannon, fly around quickly anywhere at will, and alter the very weather. That goes way beyond any weapon of war." The others nodded in solid agreement.

"I have gained a new respect for these Superships." Kirishima commented. "Originally I would have feared the term Flagship Equipment. Hell even hearing about our Supreme Flagships brought a chill to my body. But I don't think anything the Fog has or will have in a million years will ever equal what we have witnessed so far.

"I want to suggest something." Said Fusou. She looked around nervously. "If I may?"

"Go ahead." Gunzou responded. It was interesting to see her coming up with an idea after only just joining the Blue Steel.

"We should deploy whatever active decoys we have to stabilize Trollslegur. No matter what we can't lose her. Then we need to dive down and investigate the wreck of the Arahabaki." She paused for a second." Whatever we can salvage off of it we should. I highly doubt that the Fog would pass up something so valuable and if we can find a way to integrate the Arahabaki's systems with Tya's vessel or maybe even our own, that would be very beneficial. And it deprives the Fog of that technology as well. It may give us some insights for what we can do later." Gunzou nodded. He liked that plan.

"Alright, I leave it in your hands then. Let's go with Fusou's plan." Said Gunzou.

"Right!"

* * *

Iona felt a shudder of fear run through her body as she gazed upon the sunken wreck of the Arahabaki. Lights from one of Hyuuga's operation platform pods shone upon the broken supership. She was on a mission to explore it with Hyuuga, who was in contact with Tya on board the Ars Nova, and she was giving them directions as best she could. Trollslegur was being stabilized by decoys controlled by the other Mental Models. The Arahabaki had sunk and hit the seabed on top of an underwater mountain and had slid down the mountainside to come to rest at the base. It lay on its starboard side, it's drill pointing up the mountain like it was trying to indicate to something. Large holes had been punched into the exposed side of the supership and the stern was almost completely missing, dissolved into nothingness by corrosive warheads and the Super-gravity cannon. Most of its gatling cannons lay in twisted melted heaps fused to the deck. Even in its ruined state, it still gave off a menacing presence. Iona had no desire to come any closer than she already had.

On top of that. It appeared to still be alive.

After the waters had calmed from the many things that had sent it into cacophony, she could hear a hum in her sonar, and the interference had not disappeared. This is how they found the wreck so quickly. It was more than strong enough to allow them to follow the noise all the way back to the ship.

"Come on Iona." Hyuuga spoke over the link.

"Hyuuga, do we really have to go in there?" Iona asked. Hyuuga had already moved on ahead in a platform pod of her own. She stopped near a large hole in the side. Iona didn't feel right. Whenever she scanned the sunken supership, it only gave off interference. She had come to trust Tya implicitly, but she still felt worried now, especially whenever she heard of a supership that wasn't the Trollslegur. The thought of the Vogel Sumera crossed her mind and she shuddered again.

"Iona." Hyuuga said. "I understand your fear, but you need not worry. Arahabaki cannot harm us anymore. Even if it were somehow still active, the others will be ready to blow it to pieces if anything untoward happens." Iona adopted a weary expression.

"Understood. I will follow behind you. You have a better chance of navigating through the Arahabaki." Hyuuga didn't respond. Iona noted that the waters near the supership seemed completely devoid of life. Though the supership was dead and immersed in water, there was no sign of oxidizing metal. No bacteria contaminated the water near the vessel, and there was no sign of any marine animals in the water or on the ocean floor. It was scary. Iona had learned fear the hard way, and she had no desire to learn again. She followed Hyuuga into the large hole.

"Be careful Iona, you do not want to get caught up on any wreckage." Hyuuga warned. Iona let off subtle sonar pings. The hallways inside the Arahabaki were large, providing easy movement despite the scrap metal and electronics that lay strewn about. Iona took note of anything and everything she saw.

It was beyond her the technology of the superships. Access panels were missing, revealing wires and circuitry beyond her comprehension. They seemed to run off into nothing without connecting to anything, and yet they were not broken, simply inactive. Things that worked before only lay dormant due to lack of power. What inconceivable power could have crafted such monstrosities? The two platforms floated through numerous hallways and bulkheads. The deeper they prowled into the supership, the less the damage became apparent.

Iona felt swallowed up as she remembered being stranded on the ocean floor when she had sunk with Gunzou. She felt a deep pit begin to form inside her, messing with her logic routines. But she kept moving, staying behind Hyuuga as they penetrated deeper. Several bulkhead doors had to be cut through, but they made it through. Eventually, they found themselves at the heart of the supership.

"Damnit, I can't get any readings through all this interference." Hyuuga said. "But if I have my directional routines in order, then this should be the Engine Room." Two extension arms reached out from her platform and tugged at the door, checking to make sure it wasn't stuck. And it wasn't. The door came off easily and the two platforms floated through.

What greeted Iona next shocked her.

The lights in the engine room were dim, but they were lit despite being deep underwater. The engine hall was positively massive. And for good reason too. The engine was gigantic, with many tubes and cables pulsing softly with unused energy. Several doors led off into unexplored sections of the ship.

"I think it's about time we checked this out." Said Hyuuga. Her pod opened and she floated silently out. Iona watched from inside her pod. Her hair glowed slightly, flowing behind her as she moved through the water. Iona did the same thing as her, popping her pod open with a soft _fwoosh._ The frigid waters rushed into the pod as it cracked open and Iona shivered before adjusting her nanomaterial body to ignore the temperatures. She swam with brisk movements over to the engine and laid her hand on it. It was still warm, subtly vibrating as she moved her hand across it. It was surprisingly smooth to the touch. Iona sensed vast energy inside the machine, but could not make any sense of it. Hyuuga moved silently, bypassing the engine completely towards a door at the far back of the giant room.

"Gunzou," Iona spoke over a quantum link in her head. "We made it to the engine room. I cannot fathom the number of things I don't understand. This technology is completely alien to us and doesn't seem to run on any basic principles." She heard Gunzou's voice bounce around in her head.

"Find the Arahabaki's core with Hyuuga, if it even has one. Once you have gotten out of there I want to see if we can salvage any usable parts from the ship."

"Roger." Iona cut the link. She followed Hyuuga, who had disappeared through the door.

"Hyuuga, this is..." Iona lost her voice.

"Yes. This is Arahabaki's core."

Standing in the center of the small room was a cracked glass tube that spanned from the floor to the ceiling. The pipelines flowing into the tube seemed to be connected to the main engine. It was filled with a translucent grey goo that seemed almost alive and yet didn't move at all.

Inside floating in the gooey mass was a sphere.

The sphere wasn't an excessively large one. It was only slightly larger than a baseball, and it glowed partially with lights that seemed to spasm as they passed across its surface Hyuuga rammed her elbow into the cracked glass and it shattered, the shards punched into the grey goo and bit into Hyuuga's arms, but she was unaffected. She reached in and wrapped her hands around the sphere as the goo began to ooze out. As soon as she pulled it out, the sphere went silent, it's pulsing lights slowly fading to the same black color that was the sphere. Hyuuga held it out for Iona to see. It was textured only in circuitry. Iona tried to analyze it, knowing full well that she wouldn't get any tangible data. All she knew was what she saw. Then the ship shuddered. Iona could feel the engine as it began to deactivate behind her. It seemed the core was still active before they removed it.

* * *

'|Superior| Initializing private spatial link to command supership |Habbakuk|. Dial and respond.'

{LINKAGE CONNECT-SUPERSHIP HABBAKUK}

'Habbakuk: |Superior| Why do you initiate contact?'

'Superior: You are the supership I assigned -Monitor Directive- of |Fleet-of-Fog Flagship| Report information.'

'Habakkuk: |Fleet-of-Fog Flagship| has ordered Fleet of Fog |Science Vessel| to develop weapons against |Superships| Analysis indicated -Learned Response- vs |Superships| No actual trials observed against |Superships| TRANSMITTING DATA.'

'Superior: RECEIVING DATA /|Noted|\ Will report to |Supreme Directive| /\ Status of Flagship.'

'Habakkuk: Flagship movement along 0000 pattern through Arctic. No deviation since -Monitor Directive- acquired.'

'Superior: Priority Mandate: Continue -Monitor Directive-| Report new useful information.'

'Habakkuk: A moment |Superior|.'

'Superior: Go ahead.'

'Habakkuk: Devotion of unused :Intelligence: monitoring activities in Pacific Ocean. Query-Why have you sent |Supership Wirbelwind| to observe |Defector Flagship|-|Supership Trollslegur|? Why not simply send |Supership Vogel Sumra| to render inactive? Aerial attacks against Fleet of Fog Proven effective.'

'Superior: Direct orders from |Supreme Directive|. Presumed actions call for observation of |Life|. Inactivation of |Supership Arahabaki| deemed analysis of |Life| a requirement. Potential: |Life| May allow higher /AUTONOMY\ between vessels. Requirement to analyze and counter. |Supership Wirbelwind| will not initiate -Attack Directive- against |Defector Flagship|-|Supership Trollslegur| Orders are to observe |Defector Flagship|-|Supership Trollslegur| until contact with predicted destination, Human architecture |San Diego|. Perhaps there is a concept to be learned from observing selected vessels. |Supership Alvenhisk| has been sent to reclaim |Supership Arahabaki|'

'Habakkuk: UNDERSTANDING...Processes complete.'

'Superior: No further directive.'

'Habakkuk: Understood.

{LINKAGE DISCONNECT-SUPERSHIP HABBAKUK}

'Superior: What is |Supreme Directive| doing?'


	11. Chapter 10: Ashes of War

**Chapter 10: Ashes of War**

The damage done to the Trollslegur was definitely immense. Were it not for the multiple Mental Models that the Blue Steel had on hand to control the active decoys of the Ars Nova, it probably would not have been recoverable. But using deployable wires, they were able to right the ship from its heavy list. Tow cables allowed the Ars Nova to haul the massive supership in tandem with the decoys, but only at a measly 20 knots. And that was with Tya helping by engaging her engines despite it causing her immense pain. They were a sitting duck like this.

Gunzou was more than relieved that they survived however. It had been a tumultuous few hours since the dive crew came back from the Arahabaki. Almost as soon as they did, he licensed the total destruction of the Arahabaki's sunken hull with the Super-Gravity Cannon. It would be a real menace if the Fleet of Fog were able to get ahold of Virshian technology, and he wasn't about to let that happen. Two precise shots annihilated the core components of the vessel and damaged the rest beyond repair. It was an unsalvageable mess on the ocean floor, buried under rubble from the seamount it lay on.

"Sou, check our course. Where are we headed?" The man in question looked up from his computer screen.

"We are currently following the storm trail left behind by the Vogel Sumera. I've been analyzing the weather patterns and they have been severely disrupted throughout this region. Large storms will likely slow our travel since we will not be able to haul Trollslegur through such dangerous waters safely. Fortunately, this storm that we are in currently is leveling off and becoming a natural depression. I think we may be able to use this storm chain as cover from the Fog."

"Any vessel readings?" Gunzou asked. Sou had put the display on the big monitor and he was studying it closely.

"Nothing so far." Sou replied. Kyohei laughed in his cubicle.

"They probably all got destroyed in that battle! Ahhhh for once I don't feel like our lives are being gambled with."

"Shizuka, can you get me an update from Iori?" Gunzou asked.

"Yes, one second." She responded. Due to the massive amount of damage that Trollslegur had sustained, Gunzou had sent Iori over to the vessel in safety gear to protect her from the hostile environment in order to make light repairs with Hyuuga's help. In a way, he felt bad, telling Iori to cram into her brain not only the knowledge of Fog equipment, but now Virshian equipment as well. At the same time though, she practically begged him to go when he mentioned the possibility of lightly repairing the vessel.

There was a problem though.

Unlike the Fleet of Fog, who could freely control Nanomaterials to build new warships, ammunition, and other amenities, Tya and her Trollslegur were unable to control Nanomaterials and use them to restore her hull. As a result, her repair processes were dreadfully slow. Although parts of the Trollslegur that had broken off could be perfectly reclaimed and repaired back onto the vessel, the process was far slower than it would be for a Fog vessel. They were relying more on Tya's own production machinery to build new armor plates, and exactly how her onboard foundries worked was still a mystery. Tya had offered to them a schematic of her vessel, but reading the blueprints was impossible. Even Hyuuga with her advanced theories ran into trouble wherever Virshian tech was concerned.

Because of that, the core that they salvaged from Arahabaki was also useless to them until Tya had healed enough to where she could read it properly. For the time, Gunzou had elected to keep it with him. He carried it pretty much everywhere he went, not wanting to lose it and the valuable knowledge it must contain. Currently, it rested in the cupholder attached to his command chair, and every so often he stared at it with intensity. It was quite captivating, the patterns of circuitry almost made it seem alive somehow.

"Captain." Said Shizuka. "Iori filed a report just a little while ago, I'll post it up on the monitor." The weather screens disappeared and Iori's message was played out loud.

 _The Trollslegur has indeed sustained massive damage. Hyuuga and I are alright, but it is incredibly dangerous here. The intense radiation would fry a human alive were they not wearing a toughened suit like mine. Nevertheless, we are working on the more critical damage sections trying to repair the damage that we found below the waterline. I'm impressed as to how tough this material is however. Even the Fleet of Fog Nanosteel Alloys are not as tough as this stuff. Despite being rammed with such force, most of the beams and the supporting skeleton isn't even bent out of shape nevermind cracked or broken. Damage was fairly localized to where the drill hit. Other than that we patched most of the other damages, but it might be a while before Tya can use her forward laser batteries or her big gun. Anyways, the rampant energy is disrupting the comms, so I have to go. Don't worry about me, I'll see you all later._

"At least we know she is okay." Gunzou said. "I'm going to head to my quarters. Alert me if anything happens that is untoward."

"Yes sir!" Sou gave him an armchair salute, which Gunzou returned before heading to his quarters, the Arahabaki's core in hand. He swapped his usual suit and tie for cargo pants and a shirt with "BLUE STEEL" written on it. He flopped in his bed and held the Arahabaki's core again above his head. It entranced him in a way. He knew it, he could feel it. It was still alive, just dormant. The superships were intriguing. Why had they sent Arahabaki to attack them? Effectively, they were the same entity against the Fog. The Trollslegur had the capability of destroying islands and was clearly designed to annihilate many warships in very quick order, something that would require many Fog warships operating at maximum capacity to do so. But why would such a ship need to be built? And for that matter, there were clearly more superships, but why would you need so many? And he wondered about one thing above all.

The Supreme Directive.

Tya had mentioned it back on Iwoto. But who was the Supreme Directive? Was it another supership? He couldn't come up with an answer. The superships confused him even more than the Fog did. He assumed that it was like the Fleet of Fog Admirality Code and Humanity's governments, an overarching command structure of sorts. That would make the most sense.

"If it is a supership, what kind of power does it have?" Gunzou whispered to himself.

"And what does it plan to do?"

* * *

The next day came rather quickly for the Blue Steel. Iona found herself outside enjoying the nice weather that came. The storms were anomalous in nature and they faded quickly to reveal a warm sun. She soaked in the rays, resting on one of the beach chairs on the deck. She kept a few around because the crew liked to relax on the deck themselves whenever it was safe. She watched a glow on the horizon grow slowly and knew they were nearing their destination as a large blip began to appear on her long-range sensors.

Her thoughts paused.

Why was she seeing a glow?

"Gunzou, something is wrong here." She spoke over the quantum link. Fog vessels didn't glow as brightly as she was seeing.

Then she saw the smoke. It rose high in bright wisps that shimmered against the sky. That was the glow she saw. As she neared the source of the smoke, she saw where it was coming from.

A gigantic maritime city, easily the largest construct she had ever seen at sea, lay in smoking ruins. She called for Gunzou and the others to appear on the forward deck and they did. Hyuuga looked out and she gasped.

"The largest Fleet of Fog port in the Pacific ocean, Amenominakanushi….."

"I'm picking up no signs of activity." Said Fusou, her face painted in the expression of horror, her words just barely audible for everyone "Just from the long-range scans…..the entire island is in ruins."

Iona looked out at the giant city. She herself felt odd emotions conflicting within her. Fear and curiosity clashed in a battle for control of her processors. She could feel the other Mental Models undergoing similar stress. During her travels with Gunzou, she had seen Fleet of Fog maritime cities. Though they were only capable of observing them from a distance, they were very beautiful cities in her eyes, but nothing approached the sheer size of Amenominakanushi. Hyuuga had told her that smaller port cities were designed to mine the rich ocean floor and surrounding waters for nanomaterials and most importantly Gravatite, the material found deep within the Earth that the Fleet of Fog could refine into Thanatonium. Large port cities were designed to build, resupply, and repair warships of the Fleet of Fog as well as refine the minerals that the smaller cities had gathered into usable components. They were also equipped with a space elevator that could lift the valuable materials into outer space, although where those materials went after they had been brought into space was a mystery even to Hyuuga, a former Flagship.

Amenominakanushi was different from other port cities though. Each major ocean has a command port city. For the Pacific, this happened to be Amenominakanushi. It could perform all the tasks of a small port city and a large port city combined with much greater efficiency. It also had multiple space elevators and it served as the main hub for the Pacific Fleet of Fog. Suspended high above the city in space tethered to the elevators was the satellite that held the Flagship Equipment pieces for every Flagship in the Pacific. Of course, the base itself was also heavily armed with missiles, Photon Cannons, and land-based Super-Gravity Cannons as well as a powerful Klein Field.

All of this had been brought to swift ruin.

No doubt the damage that the city had sustained was caused by the flying fortress Vogel Sumera. Her scans revealed that the island's main reactor was completely offline as well as backup power sources. The entire network of space elevators had collapsed on the city, which also dragged down the entire satellite of Flagship Equipment with it. The gigantic flower-petal like panels that were once massive Klein Field projectors had also been destroyed and now lay broken across the city. There was no sign of any vessels at all nearby, and as the Ars Nova and the Trollslegur neared the base, the damage became more evident and clear. A gigantic hole had been blown straight through the city, presumably by the Vogel Sumera's massive cannon. This shot must have completely obliterated the reactor as there was no sign of or response from it, which would have probably caused a big enough explosion to bring down the space elevators if the Vogel Sumera didn't blow those up by itself. The huge docking bays that could service dozens of warships had broken apart and caved in, which had crushed any ship using them at the time. Huge chunks of the city had been devastated presumably by the Vogel Sumera's main cannon and it was evident that large cannons and heavy lasers were used to bring Amenominakanushi to its knees. Intense fires still raged somewhere deep in the city, which is what caused the huge smoke clouds. Deep scans showed that the surrounding seafloor had been severely damaged and magma was flowing up from the mantle, causing the waters to heat up despite the magma almost instantly cooling upon contact with the seawater. The mining apparatuses had been reduced to ruin, already becoming a part of the ocean surrounding it. Amenominakanushi's seafloor supports had been heavily damaged too, and as a result, the island was actually sinking, but the redundancy of the Fog's designs had slowed this somewhat. The docking bays were almost completely submerged underwater, but it would still be days before the city disappeared below the waves.

Iona was reminded of an ancient tale that Gunzou had told her once about the city of Atlantis, and she was reminded of that tale. How the gods of humanity looked upon the beautiful island city that rivaled their own godly homes and of the mistakes that it had made against the gods. As a result, the consensus among the gods was to send a great flood and riddle the maritime city with powerful earthquakes, sinking the island and all its wonder into the sea forever, never to be found again.

Seeing one of the most powerful bases of the Fog put to the torch in such a manner made Iona sick. Were the superships their gods? What had they done to deserve such a fate? Would the Blue Steel end up being destroyed by the might of the superships just as Amenominakanushi?

* * *

Tya had healed enough during their voyage where her body now was back in one piece, however she was very weak. They had put her into a fabricated wheelchair and Fusou, had found it in her core to offer to push her around. She had to admit to herself, at first she hated Tya for what she did to her. But seeing Tya going against her own kind, risking her life to protect the Blue Steel, and by proxy her, was impressive, and she reevaluated her initial impression of her. She knew the sheer power of the Superships, the evidence was right in front of her in the form of a ruined city. To see Tya fighting against her own kind, a powerful race of warships, she had no choice but to respect her.

Amenominakanushi was built out of nanomaterials. Without the reactor that served not only as a power source, but as the main Union Core of the island, the surviving nanomaterials were rendered unaligned. The Blue Steel had used this to their advantage and Hyuuga had constructed a small floating dock which the Ars Nova now floated alongside. The Trollslegur had dropped anchor alongside the dock on the other side, it's list now barely noticeable as it's emergency systems pumped the last of the water out of the newly repaired hull. Though the damage the Arahabaki had caused was still very evident, it was no longer at risk of sinking. The containment fields had been repaired as well, so the exotic energy that had originally rendered the ship very unsafe was now gone, and it could be boarded safely again. Kirishima and Haruna had gone into the island to further assess the damage and find anything of value. Takao and Iona had stayed behind to help Hyuuga and the crew of the Ars Nova refill their nanomaterial bunkers and build basic warheads while repairing the damages to the ship. With nothing left for Fusou to do, she had decided it would be nice to bring Tya out for a stroll and perhaps lighten their relationship a bit.

"Aside from the destruction, nice view isn't it Tya?" She asked her.

"Yes."

Tya's orange hair drifted calmly behind her with the sea breeze, tickling Fusou's belly lightly, her dress fluttering in the wind. Fusou had to admit there was something charming about her. For a weapon of mass destruction, she certainly looked the part. Fusou wondered if there were other Mental Models that were a part of the superships. It was a topic she'd study intensely.

After all, it was perhaps the most intriguing mystery of them all.

* * *

Musashi found herself glowering. Though the Fleet of Fog was a well-oiled machine when it came to logistics, the loss of Amenominakanushi was putting a severe burden on the other port cities in the Pacific. The flagships of the Pacific fleets demanded to know what had happened and as a result Musashi had to declassify the known information on the Virshian Navy and the Superships and share it with the global Fleet of Fog.

Some of the flagships had responded with sheer terror at the video footage of the flying fortress decimating Kongo's forces and Amenominakanushi. Others claimed that they could crush the Superships with their might. Musashi knew better than all as the Supreme Flagship that the Superships were not to be messed with and that they should very well be treated as an immense threat, for if the flying fortress existed, what else were the Superships hiding? Briefly her mind flashed back to when the supership that had attacked her appeared, but she shook the thought away.

There was a trend in the system of the Fog. Most of the Atlantic fleets and flagships of smaller seas such as the Mediterranian and the Baltic were very much green when it came to warfare. The Pacific fleets had gone through multiple Supership attacks as well as the rebellion of the Blue Steel, and had gained many insights. As such the Pacific Flagships were bombarding her with defense strategies against the Superships while the Atlantic ships, not knowing much about warfare aside from dealing with humans, were pushing her to attack the Superships. Ordinarily she would agree with a full scale assault against the Superships, but there was one definitive problem.

They knew nothing.

There have only been very few sightings of Superships, and despite investigations by her intelligence cells, both on land and at sea, there were no signs of any ports that Superships could possibly be based out of. No one knew anything about them at all. There was nothing in the human's archives that possibly pertained to them and there was nothing physical to be found about them other than the ships themselves. How they conducted repairs and resupplies was a complete baffling mystery to her and the rest of the Fog.

All that they knew after 2 years of dredging up info resulted in very little usable information. There were five superships sighted so far. The Trollslegur, the only known vessel with a designation, traveled with the Blue Steel. The drillship had been destroyed by the Blue Steel albeit with Trollslegur's help, so there was at least a little hope for the Fleet of Fog in that regard. The flying fortress was far too powerful for them to face without bringing significant armament to bear on it. The last two were the tri-hulled carrier and the high-speed battlecruiser, of which they knew little about them aside from the information learned from last SOS voice comms from the ships that they had sunk. They had attempted global communications with the Superships, but they had received no responses at all. Either the Superships were incapable of responding, something that Musashi and the other Pacific Flagships highly doubted, or they didn't want to respond.

Musashi hated the idea...she didn't want to do it...but she had no real choice in the matter.

Her data rings opened, and she began drafting plans. I-400 and I-402 would arrive in the arctic shortly to give their verbal reports as well as deliver the mental model of Kongo to her. Over a stretch of time, she'd free humanity from their restraints, recalling the Fleet of Fog all the way back to the Arctic. They would form a citadel in the Arctic Circle, reinforcing the defenses of the two entry points from the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Her hope was that humanity would be forced to deal with the Superships. She would open the way for the Blue Steel to deliver the Vibration Warhead and allow humanity to begin rebuilding. It was confirmed that humanity had no links whatsoever to the Superships, and considering it was likely impossible for humans to even maintain a Supership, it was highly unlikely that they were going to become allies. Humanity would be their cannon fodder until such time as they devised a way to fight back against the superships. Even with Vibration Warhead technology, it would be very difficult for humans to battle against Fleet of Fog warships, so anything that could potentially slow down the Superships and take their attention away from the Fog would be welcomed.

But how long would this stopgap measure last?


End file.
